Plutarch writes:
Once, Caphisias, I remember, I heard from an artist an excellent description, cast as a simile, of people who look at pictures. He said that amateur, unskilled viewers are like those who greet a large crowd en masse, whereas skilled professionals are like those who address everyone they meet individually and in personal terms, in the sense that the first group get an impression of the finished products which is not precise, but only hazy, whereas professionals have the discrimination to take each aspect of the work separately, and they don't overlook or fail to comment on anything, whether good or bad.
Now in my opinion, we can extend the analogy to real events too: when faced with history, lazier minds are satisfied if they gather just the gist and the conclusion of a situation, whereas anyone who appreciates honour and nobility, and who views the products of the master art, as it were, of virtue, finds the details more enjoyable, on the grounds that although the result has a lot in common with chance, yet by virtue of their causes the particular contests of virtue against chance occurrences and the acts of intelligent bravery in the face of suitable conditions [become clear cases of] rationality suitably blended with opportunity and emotion.
"On Socrates' Personal Deity" [Περί του Σωκράτους δαιμονίου, De Genio Socratis], Moralia VII:46, tr. Robin Waterfield, ed. Ian Kidd, (London: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 308.