quotations about fame
Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
Of present fame think little, and of future less. The praises that we receive after we are buried, like the posies that are strewn over our graves, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead; the dead are gone, either to a place where they hear them not, or where, if they do, they will despise them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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.
JOSEPH ADDISON
The Spectator, Dec. 22, 1711
Fame for fame's sake is a completely empty experience. Fame should be a by-product (and not necessarily a good one) of achieving something extraordinary.
RITA RUDNER
I Still Have It ... I Just Can't Remember Where I Put It
Fame is like a big eraser. It's strange, now that I'm famous, in my parents' opinion, all the shitty things--all the wreckage of my past is erased.... Now it's like I was never the kid who got arrested--now I'm the wonderful son.
BOBCAT GOLDTHWAIT
The Devil's Guide to Hollywood
To me, fame is the important thing.
I'd give up all I owned for it.
What good is a voice like Orpheus'
If no one knows it belongs to you?
EURIPIDES
Medea
'Tis the white stag, Fame, we're a-hunting,
Bid the world's hounds come to horn!
EZRA POUND
The White Stag
Fame is a fickle food
Upon a shifting plate,
Whose table once a Guest, but not
The second time, is set.
Whose crumbs the crows inspect,
And with ironic caw
Flap past it to the Farmer’s corn;
Men eat of it and die.
EMILY DICKINSON
"Fame is a fickle food"
The poets make Fame a monster. They describe her in part finely and elegantly, and in part gravely and sententiously. They say, look how many feathers she hath, so many eyes she hath underneath; so many tongues; so many voices; she pricks up so many ears.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Fame", The Essays or Counsels
Notoriety wasn't as good as fame, but was heaps better than obscurity.
NEIL GAIMAN & TERRY PRATCHETT
Good Omens
Fame then was cheap, and the first comer sped;
And they have kept it since by being dead.
JOHN DRYDEN
The Conquest of Granada
Fame lightens labour.
EDWARD COUNSEL
Maxims
What is the end of Fame? 'tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour:
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their "midnight taper,"
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
LORD BYRON
Don Juan
The more well-known you are, you become a target.
CALVIN KLEIN
Larry King Live, Jun. 5, 2000
There have been as great Souls unknown to fame as any of the most famous.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Poor Richard's Almanack, 1734
Thou wishest fame! ambition in thy soul
Bids thee toil onward to the distant goal,
And holds the dazzling prize before the view,
Fought for by many; gained by ah, how few!
MARY T. LATHRAP
"To One Who Wishes Fame"
When you're famous you kind of run into human nature in a raw kind of way. It stirs up envy, fame does. People you run into feel that, well, who does she think she is, Marilyn Monroe? They feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you, of any kind of nature -- and it won't hurt your feelings -- like it's happening to your clothes not you.
MARILYN MONROE
attributed, Marilyn Monroe: A Life of the Actress (Rollyson)
Fame is like a coin given to you by Fate. But everyone knows that each coin has two sides. After a while fame can become a nuisance to you because of the constant, intrusive, and overwhelming attention.
NATALIE F. VISHNAYAKOVA
The Abcs of Creativity, Talent, and Spirituality
For however I may in former days as a young man have liked the notice which the being in a great man's train secures one, now that I have a fixed character of my own, obscurity is far the most agreeable.
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS
diary, July 1837
The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons.
SUSAN SONTAG
The Benefactor