Archive

Quotes

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

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

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

I would much rather have men ask why I have no statue than why I have one.

—Cato the Elder, c. 184 BC

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

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

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

A woman’s greatest glory is to be little talked about by men, whether for good or ill.

—Pericles, c. 450 BC

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

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

—Ethel Merman, c. 1955

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

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 BC

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

—Mencius, c. 330 BC

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.

—Albert Einstein, 1931