Motivational Quotes

Fame

Celebrity is a mask that eats into the face. As soon as one is aware of being somebody, to be watched and listened to with extra interest, input ceases, and the performer goes blind and deaf in his over-animation. One can either see or be seen.

- Updike, John

Best Quotes about Fame

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

Fame is proof that the people are gullible.

Emerson, Ralph Waldo

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

Parkinson, Cecil

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

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

Francois de La Rochefoucauld

Fame is but the breath of people, and that often unwholesome.

Rousseau, Jean Jacques

The fame you earn has a different taste from the fame that is forced upon you.

Vanderbilt, Gloria

The present condition of fame is merely fashion.

Chesterton, Gilbert K.

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

10.

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

Auden, W. H.

11.

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

12.

There are names written in her immortal scroll at which Fame blushes!

Hazlitt, William

13.

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)

14.

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

15.

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

16.

I had it all and blew it.

Mantle, Mickey

17.

Fame is something that must be won. Honor is something that must not be lost.

Schopenhauer, Arthur

18.

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

Boorstin, Daniel J.

19.

Fame is a fickle food upon a shifting plate.

Dickinson, Emily

20.

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

Nabokov, Vladimir

21.

If fame is to come only after death, I am in no hurry for it.

Martial, Marcus Valerius

22.

Sometimes I wish I weren't famous.

Wynette, Tammy

23.

It often happens that those of whom we speak least on earth are best known in heaven.

Caussin, Nicolas

24.

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

25.

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

26.

To want fame is to prefer dying scorned than forgotten.

Cioran, E. M.

27.

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

28.

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.

29.

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

30.

Even the best things are not equal to their fame.

Thoreau, Henry David

31.

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

32.

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

Chuang-tzu

33.

I want to be famous everywhere.

Pavarotti, Luciano

34.

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

35.

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.

36.

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

Sewell, Thomas

37.

It's going to come true like you knew it, but it's not going to feel like you think.

Rosie O'Donnell

38.

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

Martial, Marcus Valerius

39.

To many fame comes too late.

Camoens, Luis De

40.

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

Mills, C. Wright

41.

Some people obtain fame, others deserve it.

Lessing, Doris

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.

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

Madonna

44.

I was the only one there I never heard of.

Farber, Barry J.

45.

How great are the dangers I face to win a good name in Athens.

Alexander The Great

46.

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

Wolcot, John

47.

It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.

Juvenal, (Decimus Junius Juvenalis)

48.

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

49.

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

Franklin, Benjamin

50.

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

Proverb, Chinese