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.

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

When I do a show, the whole show revolves around me, and if I don’t show up, they can just forget it.

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.

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

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

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. 

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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!

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.

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

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