What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
—Voltaire, 1723
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Quotes
We all have a contract with the public—in us they see themselves, or what they would like to be.
—Clark Gable, 1935Avoid 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 BCReality is always the foe of famous names.
—Petrarch, 1337He who treats another human being as divine thereby assigns to himself the relative status of a child or an animal.
—E. R. Dodds, 1951If fame is only to come after death, I am in no hurry for it.
—Martial, c. 86