Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.
—Sammy Davis Jr., 1965Quotes
What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.
—Erasmus, 1515If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86Happy is the man who hath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell!
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1843What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
—Voltaire, 1723Most authors seek fame, but I seek for justice—a holier impulse than ever entered into the ambitious struggles of the votaries of that fickle, flirting goddess.
—Davy Crockett, 1834How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”
—Persius, c. 60There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
—Oscar Wilde, 1891Reality is always the foe of famous names.
—Petrarch, 1337Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.
—Julie Burchill, 1986Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.
—Ambrose Bierce, 1906A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.
—Pericles, c. 450 BCThere lurks in every human heart a desire of distinction which inclines every man first to hope and then to believe that nature has given him something peculiar to himself.
—Samuel Johnson, 1763