Avoid the talk of men. For talk is mischievous, light, and easily raised, but hard to bear and difficult to be rid of. Talk never wholly dies away when many people voice her: even talk is in some ways divine.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it, and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

Possessions, outward success, publicity, luxury—to me these have always been contemptible. I believe that a simple and unassuming manner of life is best for everyone, best both for the body and the mind.

There 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. 

If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.

A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.

Happy 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!

How sweet it is to have people point and say, “There he is.”

We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.

What is popularly called fame is nothing but an empty name and a legacy from paganism.

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.

And what will history say of me a thousand years hence?

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.