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

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!

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

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.

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

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

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.

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

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.

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.

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