Motivational Quotes

Fame

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

Best Quotes about Fame

The difference between great celebrities and the unknown is the former failed and yet went at it again; the latter gave up in despair.

Heartthrobs are a dime a dozen.

Pitt, Brad

Glory follows virtue as if it were its shadow.

Cicero, Marcus T.

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

Erasmus, Desiderius

The love of fame is the last weakness which even the wise resign.

Tacitus, Publius Cornelius

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

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

Nabokov, Vladimir

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

Chuang-tzu

To become a celebrity is to become a brand name. There is Ivory Soap, Rice Krispies, and Philip Roth. Ivory is the soap that floats; Rice Krispies the breakfast cereal that goes snap-crackle-pop; Philip Roth the Jew who masturbates with a piece of liver.

Roth, Philip

10.

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

Dickinson, Emily

11.

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

Martial, Marcus Valerius

12.

Good fame is like fire; when you have kindled you may easily preserve it; but if you extinguish it, you will not easily kindle it again.

Bacon, Francis

13.

It's too bad I'm not as wonderful a person as people say I am, because the world could use a few people like that.

Alda, Alan

14.

Celebrity is never more admired than by the negligent.

Shakespeare, William

15.

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

16.

What desire for fame attends both great and small; better be damned than mentioned not at all!

Wolcot, John

17.

Once you become famous, there is nothing left to become but infamous.

Johnson, Don

18.

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

Hellman, Lillian

19.

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

20.

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

Parkinson, Cecil

21.

I had it all and blew it.

Mantle, Mickey

22.

The strongest poison ever known came from Caesar's laurel crown.

Blake, William

23.

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

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

24.

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

25.

Wood burns because it has the proper stuff in it; and a man becomes famous because he has the proper stuff in him.

Goethe, Johann Wolfgang Von

26.

Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud.

Auden, W. H.

27.

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)

28.

Fame hides her head among the clouds.

Virgil

29.

A sign of celebrity is often that their name is worth more than their services.

Boorstin, Daniel J.

30.

Popularity? It is glory's small change.

Victor Hugo

31.

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

32.

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

Voltaire

33.

Who would wish to be among the commonplace crowd of the little famous -- who are each individually lost in a throng made up of themselves?

Keats, John

34.

Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world, save that the echo repeats only the last art, but fame relates all, and often more than all.

Fuller, Thomas

35.

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

Shakespeare, William

36.

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

Cato The Elder

37.

Riches: A dream in the night. Fame: A gull floating on water.

Proverb, Chinese

38.

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

Madonna

39.

Famous I don't know about. It's hard to be famous and alive. I just want to play music every day and hear someone say,'Thanks, that was great, here's some money, same time tomorrow, okay?'

Terry Pratchett

40.

Few people rise to our esteem upon closer scrutiny.

Proverb, French

41.

The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.

Mills, C. Wright

42.

A star on a movie set is like a time bomb. That bomb has got to be defused so people can approach it without fear.

Nicholson, Jack

43.

Fame is like a shaved pig with a greased tail, and it is only after it has slipped through the hands of some thousands, that some fellow, by mere chance, holds on to it!

Crockett, Davy

44.

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

45.

I want to be famous everywhere.

Pavarotti, Luciano

46.

The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons.

Sontag, Susan

47.

A legend is an old man with a cane known for what he used to do. I'm still doing it.

Davis, Miles

48.

We always hear about the haves and the have-nots. Why don't we hear about the doers and the do-nots.

Sewell, Thomas

49.

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

50.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Colton, Charles Caleb