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!

He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.

I won’t be happy till I’m as famous as God.

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.

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

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

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

Men are generally more pleased with a widespread than with a great reputation.

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.

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

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

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.

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