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

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

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. 

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

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

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

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

I am sick and tired of publicity. I want no more of it. It puts me in a bad light. I just want to be forgotten.

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

All people have the common desire to be elevated in honor, but all people have something still more elevated in themselves without knowing it.

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

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

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.