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Quotes

Most 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, 1834

Fame will go by and, so long, I’ve had you, fame. If it goes by, I’ve always known it was fickle. So at least it’s something I experienced, but that’s not where I live.

—Marilyn Monroe, 1962

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.

—Voltaire, 1723

They are trying to make me into a fixed star. I am an irregular planet.

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

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.

—Albert Einstein, 1931

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

—Erasmus, 1515

Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, now that, and changes names as it changes in direction.

—Dante Alighieri, c. 1315

Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

—Julie Burchill, 1986

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

—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, c. 1790

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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!

—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1843

There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.

—Oscar Wilde, 1891