Archive

Quotes

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

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

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

—Pericles, c. 450 BC

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

—Voltaire, 1723

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

—Clark Gable, 1935

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

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

Fame is but the empty noise of madmen.

—Epictetus, c. 100

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

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

—Erasmus, 1515

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

I’m afraid of losing my obscurity. Genuineness only thrives in the dark. Like celery.

—Aldous Huxley, 1925

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