Archive

Quotes

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

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

—E. R. Dodds, 1951

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

—Pliny the Younger, c. 110

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

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

—Martial, c. 86

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

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

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

Now there is fame! Of all—hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public—fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation by God of the artist. It is sad. It is true.

—Pablo Picasso, c. 1961

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

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 BC

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

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

—Madonna, c. 1985

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

—Clark Gable, 1935