Seneca: A golden bit does not make a better horse.

Seneca writes:

If ever you have come upon a grove that is full of ancient trees which have grown to an unusual height, shutting out a view of the sky by a veil of pleached and intertwining branches, then the loftiness of the forest, the seclusion of the spot, and your marvel and the thick unbroken shade in the midst of the open spaces, will prove to you the presence of a deity.

..what is more foolish than to praise in a man the qualities which come from without? And what is more insane than to marvel at characteristics which may at the next instant be passed on to someone else?

A golden bit does not make a better horse.

Likewise, they bid us to "examine all things severally", like Aurelius saying sex is just skin surfaces touching, and his exclusive purple dyes for his cloak were just shellfish blood.  Everything can be produced to something contemptible; he even had contempt for his dinner, saying it was just "some dead flesh".

They also, between Seneca and Marcus, remind us that if none see beauty, beauty still exists.  Wonder exists without praise and awe, and in the end, all of one's fans and detractors will someday cease to exist, leaving one's legacy to die the death of being forgotten in the popular imagination.

Suppose that he has a retinue of comely slaves and a beautiful house, that his farm is large and large his income; none of these things is in the man himself; they are all on the outside.  Praise the quality in him which cannot be given or snatched away, that which is the peculiar property of the man.

It is usually, for the average person, only the media fawning over celebrities, with a few scattered appreciations here and there from the fans; this is their narratives other than wars or politics, these celebrities, the rich and famous.  Remember that they too will be largely forgotten just after their own appointed time.

Do you ask what this is?

...reason brought to perfection...