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

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

—Pericles, c. 450 BC

Famous, adj. Conspicuously miserable.

—Ambrose Bierce, 1906

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

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

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

Those who know the joys and miseries of celebrities when they have passed the age of forty know how to defend themselves.

—Sarah Bernhardt, 1904

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

—Pliny the Younger, c. 110

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

—Madonna, c. 1985

Fame is no sanctuary from the passing of youth. Suicide is much easier and more acceptable in Hollywood than growing old gracefully.

—Julie Burchill, 1986

Reality is always the foe of famous names.

—Petrarch, 1337

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

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

—Erasmus, 1515