FAME

Related Subjects: Admiration, Ambition, Applause, Destiny, Fortune, Glory, Greatness, Hero, Honor, Monument, Name, Praise, Reputation, Vanity, Zeal

1. Oh, who shall lightly say that fame
   Is nothing but an empty name,
   When but for those, our mighty dead,
   All ages past a blank would be.—JOANNA BAILLIE, The Worth of Fame
   

2. His fame was noised throughout all the country.—Bible, Joshua 6:27
   

3. Happy is the man who bath never known what it is to taste of fame—to have it is a purgatory, to want it is a hell.—BULWER-LYTTON, The Last of the Barons
   

4. Doubt the permanent fame of any work of science which makes immediate reputation with the ignorant multitude; doubt the permanent fame of any work of imagination which is at once applauded by a convention clique that styles itself "the critical few."—BULWER-LYTTON, Caxtonia
   

5. Fame is the thirst of youth.—BYRON, Childe Harold
   

6. I awoke one morning and found myself famous.—BYRON
   

7. Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such.—CARLYLE, Goethe
   

8. Fame is the breath of power?
   What valid work was ever for itself
   Wrought solely, be it war, art, statesmanship?—JOHN DAVIDSON, Smith
   

9. How dreary to be somebody!
   How public, like a frog
   To tell your name the livelong day
   To an admiring bog!—EMILY DICKINSON, Life
   

10. Most men are so completely corrupted by opinion that they would rather be notorious for the greatest calamities than suffer no ill and be unknown.—DIO CHRYSOSTOM
    

11. Fame is a food that dead men eat,—
    I have no stomach for such meat.—AUSTIN DOBSON, Fame Is a Food that Dead Men Eat
    

12. What's fame, afther all, me la-ad? 'Tis as apt to be what some wan writes on ye'er tombstone.—F. P. DUNNE, Fame
    

13. Herein the only royal road to fame and fortune lies:
    Put not your trust in vinegar—molasses catches flies!—EUGENE FIELD, Uncle Eph
    

14. Fame sometimes hath created something of nothing.—THOMAS FULLER, Holy and Profane State
    

15. I hate the man who builds his name
    On ruins of another's fame.—JOHN GAY, The Poet and the Rose
    

16. When a man is dead, they put money in his coffin, erect monuments to his memory, and celebrate the anniversary of his birthday in set speeches. Would they take any notice of him if he were living? No!—HAZLITT, On Living to One's Self
    

17. The temple of fame is the shortest passage to riches and preferment.—JUNIUS
    

18. Fame, like a wayward girl, will still be coy
    To those who woo her with too slavish knees.—KEATS, Sonnet on Fame
    

19. Notoriety may be achieved in a narrow sphere, but fame demands for its evidence a more distant and prolonged reverberation.—LOWELL, A Great Public Character
    

20. All is ephemeral,—fame and the famous as well.—MARCUS AURELIUS, Meditations
    

21. Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise
    (That last infirmity of noble mind)
    To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
    But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
    And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
    Comes the blind Fury with th' abhorred shears
    And slits the thin-spun life.—MILTON, Lycidas (Source of title of novel by Howard Spring.)
    

22. Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.—MILTON, Lycidas
    

23. Fame, if not double-faced, is double-mouthed,
    And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
    On both his wings, one black, the other white,
    Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.—MILTON, Samson Agonistes
    

24. Nor Fame I slight, nor for her favours call;
    She comes unlooked for, if she comes at all.—POPE, The Temple of Fame
    

25. Unblemish'd let me live or die unknown;
    Oh, grant an honest fame or grant me none!—POPE, The Temple of Fame
    

26. Fame is a magnifying glass.—Proverb
    

27. Fame is but the breath of the people, and that often unwholesome.—Proverb
    

28. Fame, like a river, is narrowest at its source and broadest afar off.—Proverb
    

29. All fame is dangerous; good bringeth envy; bad, shame.—Proverb
    

30. The honorable orators, the gazettes of thunder, the tycoons, big shots and dictators, flicker in the mirror a few moments and Fade through the glass of death for discussion in an autocracy of worms.—CARL SANDBURG, The People, Yes
    

31. I would give all my fame for a pot of ale and safety.—SHAKESPEARE, Henry V
    

32. He lives in fame that died in virtue's cause.—SHAKESPEARE, Titus Andronicus

33. How men long for celebrity! Some would willingly sacrifice their lives for fame, and not a few would rather be known by their crimes than not known at all.—SIR JOHN SINCLAIR
    

34. Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.—SOCRATES
    

35. Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it we must direct our lives in such a way as to please the fancy of men, avoiding what they dislike and seeking what is pleasing to them.—SPINOZA, Tractatus de Intellectus
    

36. Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.—SWIFT, Thoughts on Various Subjects
    

37. To famous men all the earth is a sepulchre.—THUCYDIDES, History
    

38. I won a noble fame,
    But, with a sudden frown,
    The people snatched my crown,
    And in the mire trod down
    My lofty name.—THEODORE TILTON, Sir Marmaduke's Musings
    

39. When I peruse the conquer'd fame of heroes and victories of mighty generals, I do not envy the generals.—WALT WHITMAN, When I Peruse the Conquer'd Fame
    

40. There's not a thing on earth that I can name,
    So foolish, and so false, as common fame.—JOHN WILMOT, Did E'er This Saucy World