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Quotes

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.

—Hesiod, c. 700 BC

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

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

—Pliny the Younger, c. 110

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

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.

—Davy Crockett, 1834

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

—Erasmus, 1515

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

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

—Clark Gable, 1935

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

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

—Madonna, c. 1985

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

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

—Pericles, c. 450 BC