Motivational Quotes

Fame

It is dangerous to let the public behind the scenes. They are easily disillusioned and then they are angry with you, for it was the illusion they loved.

- Maugham, W. Somerset

Best Quotes about Fame

To have had fame, even very minor fame, and to have lost it, got older and maybe put on a little weight is a kind of living death.

David Nicholls

All the fame you should look for in life is to have lived it quietly.

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem De

The love of glory gives an immense stimulus.

Ovid

It is a mark of many famous people that they cannot part with their brightest hour.

Hellman, Lillian

You can't choose what you're famous for in life.

Dave Kellett

If I'm such a legend, then why am I so lonely? Let me tell you, legends are all very well if you've got somebody around who loves you.

Garland, Judy

Each man has his appointed day: short and irreparable in the brief life of all, but to extend our fame by our deeds, this is the work of mankind.

Virgil

It is a short walk from the hallelujah to the hoot.

Nabokov, Vladimir

Worldly fame is but a breath of wind that blows now this way, and now that, and changes name as it changes direction.

Dante Alighieri

10.

Fame has also this great drawback, that if we pursue it, we must direct our lives so as to please the fancy of men.

Spinoza, Baruch (Benedict de)

11.

Few people rise to our esteem upon closer scrutiny.

Proverb, French

12.

Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity.

Hazlitt, William

13.

He who pursues fame at the risk of losing his self is not a scholar.

Chuang-tzu

14.

I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.

Martial, Marcus Valerius

15.

Glory is like a circle in the water, Which never ceaseth to enlarge itself, Till by broad spreading it disperses to naught.

William Shakespeare

16.

Fame, we may understand, is no sure test of merit, but only a probability of such; it is an accident, not a property of man.

Carlyle, Thomas

17.

Celebrity is the advantage of being known to people who we don't know, and who don't know us.

Chamfort, Sebastien-Roch Nicolas De

18.

I must say, I don't feel very qualified to be a pop star. I feel very awkward at times in the role.

Bono, Edward De

19.

If you are ambitious of climbing up to the difficult, and in a manner inaccessible, summit of the Temple of Fame, your surest way is to leave on one hand the narrow path of Poetry, and follow the narrower track of Knight-Errantry, which in a trice may raise you to an imperial throne.

Cervantes, Miguel De

20.

Acquaintance lessens fame.

Claudius

21.

Now there is fame! Of all -- hunger, misery, the incomprehension by the public -- fame is by far the worst. It is the castigation of God by the artist. It is sad. It is true.

Picasso, Pablo

22.

He that pursues fame with just claims, trusts his happiness to the winds; but he that endeavors after it by false merit, has to fear, not only the violence of the storm, but the leaks of his vessel.

Johnson, Samuel

23.

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for whom I feel contempt..

Rostand, Jean

24.

It is better to be a has-been than a never-was.

Parkinson, Cecil

25.

If you modestly enjoy your fame you are not unworthy to rank with the holy.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

Throughout my life, I have seen narrow-shouldered men, without a single exception, committing innumerable stupid acts, brutalizing their fellows and perverting souls by all means. They call the motive for their actions fame.

Lautreamont, Isidore Ducasse, Comte De

27.

Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.

Shakespeare, William

28.

In the world of the celebrity, the hierarchy of publicity has replaced the hierarchy of descent and even of great wealth.

Mills, C. Wright

29.

Men's fame is like their hair, which grows after they are dead, and with just as little use to them.

Villiers, George

30.

Because I have conducted my own operas and love sheep-dogs; because I generally dress in tweeds, and sometimes, at winter afternoon concerts, have even conducted in them; because I was a militant suffragette and seized a chance of beating time to The March of the Women from the window of my cell in Holloway Prison with a tooth-brush; because I have written books, spoken speeches, broadcast, and don't always make sure that my hat is on straight; for these and other equally pertinent reasons, in a certain sense I am well known.

Smyth, Dame Ethel

31.

The fame of great men ought to be judged always by the means they used to acquire it.

La Rochefoucauld, Francois De

32.

Fame is only good for one thing-they will cash your check in a small town.

Capote, Truman

33.

My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices. I have flattered no ruling powers; I have never concealed a single thought that tempted me.

Byron, Lord

34.

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

Cicero, Marcus T.

35.

Being famous was extremely disappointing for me. When I became famous it was a complete drag and it is still a complete drag.

Morrison, Van

36.

Let us not disdain glory too much; nothing is finer, except virtue. The height of happiness would be to unite both in this life.

Chateaubriand, Vicomte De

37.

What's fame? a fancy'd life in other's breath. A thing beyond us, even before our death.

Pope, Alexander

38.

There have been as great souls unknown to fame as any of the most famous.

Franklin, Benjamin

39.

Popular applause veers with the wind.

Bright, John

40.

The majority of pop stars are complete idiots in every respect.

Sade, Marquis De

41.

Those who have known the famous are publicly debriefed of their memories, knowing as their own dusk falls that they will only be remembered for remembering someone else.

Bennett, Alan

42.

Celebrity-worship and hero-worship should not be confused. Yet we confuse them every day, and by doing so we come dangerously close to depriving ourselves of all real models. We lose sight of the men and women who do not simply seem great because they are famous but are famous because they are great. We come closer and closer to degrading all fame into notoriety.

Boorstin, Daniel J.

43.

Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time.

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth

44.

The glory of great men should always be measured by the means they have used to acquire it.

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

45.

A celebrity is a person who works hard all of their life to become well known, and then wears dark glasses to avoid being recognized.

Allen, Fred A.

46.

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

Cato The Elder

47.

Fame is an illusive thing -- here today, gone tomorrow. The fickle, shallow mob raises its heroes to the pinnacle of approval today and hurls them into oblivion tomorrow at the slightest whim; cheers today, hisses tomorrow; utter forgetfulness in a few months.

Miller, Henry

48.

I'm a bit of an abstract figure that people can project their fantasies on; it's pretty much what we all are, otherwise we wouldn't be stars, and people wouldn't be interested. But people project things on you that have nothing to do with what you really are, or they see a little something and then exaggerate it. And you can't really control that.

Salma Hayek

49.

Living in L.A., everyone likes to mold you and change you. I don't care about fame, I don't care about being a celebrity. I know that's part of the job, but I don't feed into anyone's idea of who I should be.

Jessica Alba

50.

Time hath a wallet at his back, wherein he puts. Alms for oblivion, a great-sized monster of ingratitudes.

Shakespeare, William