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Quotes

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

Being a star has made it possible for me to get insulted in places where the average Negro could never hope to go and get insulted.

—Sammy Davis Jr., 1965

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

—Marcus Tullius Cicero, 59 BC

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

—Pliny the Younger, c. 110

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

—Erasmus, 1515

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

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

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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

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

—Martin Luther, c. 1530

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

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

—Oscar Wilde, 1891

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

—Cato the Elder, c. 184 BC