Fame

"Unblemish'd let me live or die unknown; Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!"

"What's fame? a fancy'd life in others' breath. A thing beyond us, e'en before our death."

"If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin'd, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or, ravish'd with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damn'd to everlasting fame."

"Judas: Nazareth's most famous son Should have stayed a great unknown Like his father carving wood He'd have made good Table chairs and oaken chests Would have suited Jesus best He'd have caused nobody harm, no one alarm."

"Honor … means that a man is not exceptional; fame, that he is. Fame is something which must be won; honor, only something which must not be lost."

"[B]eing famous or well known can be nice or it can be a burden, it all depends on how you look at it."

"Fame's a weed, but repute is a slow-growing oak, and all we can do during our lifetimes is hop around like squirrels and plant acorns."

"Erant quibus appetentior famæ videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur"

"Sweet were the days when I was all unknown, But when my name was lifted up, the storm Brake on the mountain and I cared not for it. Right well know I that Fame is half-disfame."

"The Fame that follows death is nothing to us; And what is Fame in life but half-disfame, And counterchanged with darkness?"

"There's not a thing on earth that I can name, So foolish, and so false, as common fame."

"In our overcrowded modern world a hit record, a best-selling book, a successful film, can reach more people in a week than Shakespeare or Beethoven reached in a whole lifetime. And so fame has become the most romantic, the most desirable of all commodities, the dream for which a modern Faust might sell his soul to the Devil. Once attained, fame is never as easy to hold on to as some people believe. The people who achieve fame by some accident of fashion are usually forgotten within a week; the ones who remain on top have to work to stay there. But few people understand this. The result is that anyone who achieves sudden notoriety arouses envy and hostility. The greater the success, the greater the reaction."

"With fame, in just proportion, envy grows."

"Men should press forward, in fame's glorious chase; Nobles look backward, and so lose the race."

"Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view, Brave men would act though scandal would ensue."

"Fame is the shade of immortality, And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught, Contemn'd; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp."

"One who seeks fame and thereby loses his real self is no gentleman."

"A niche in the temple of Fame."

"Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit."

"And what after all is everlasting fame? Altogether vanity."

"Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven: No pyramids set off his memories But the eternal substance of his greatness; To which I leave him."

"The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame, Die fast away: only themselves die faster. The far-fam'd sculptor, and the laurell'd bard, Those bold insurancers of deathless fame, Supply their little feeble aids in vain."

"Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it."

"I awoke one morning and found myself famous."

"Folly loves the martyrdom of fame."

"O Fame!—if I e'er took delight in thy praises, 'Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases, Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover She thought that I was not unworthy to love her."

"Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such: it is an accident, not a property of a man."

"Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles."

"Men the most infamous are fond of fame, And those who fear not guilt, yet start at shame."

"The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome Outlives, in fame, the pious fool that rais'd it."

"Non é il mondam romore altro che un fiato Di vento, che vien quinci ed or vien quindi, E muta nome, perchè muta lato."

"La vostra nominanza é color d'erba, Che viene e va; e quei la discolora Per cui ell' esce della terra acerba."

"What shall I do to be forever known, And make the age to come my own?"

"Who fears not to do ill yet fears the name, And free from conscience, is a slave to fame."

"The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame; a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others."

"Fame then was cheap, and the first courier sped; And they have kept it since, by being dead."

"'Tis a petty kind of fame At best, that comes of making violins; And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go To purgatory none the less."

"Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world, save that the echo repeats only the last part, but fame relates all, and often more than all."

"From kings to cobblers 'tis the same; Bad servants wound their masters' fame."

"Der rasche Kampf verewigt einen Mann, Er falle gleich, so preiset ihn das Lied."

"Let the cymbals of popularity tinkle still. Let the butterflies of fame glitter with their wings. I shall envy neither their music nor their colors."

"Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame! A draught that mantles high, And seems to lift this earthly frame Above mortality. Away! to me—a woman—bring Sweet water from affection's spring."

"Short is my date, but deathless my renown."

"The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame."

"The life, which others pay, let us bestow, And give to fame what we to nature owe."

"Earth sounds my wisdom, and high heaven my fame."

"But sure the eye of time beholds no name, So blest as thine in all the rolls of fame."

"Where's Cæsar gone now, in command high and able? Or Xerxes the splendid, complete in his table? Or Tully, with powers of eloquence ample? Or Aristotle, of genius the highest example?"

"Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise: it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it: feel it, and hate it in silence."

"Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness."