Skip to content

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

— Thomas Carlyle

Another quote →

Topics

Fame

More quotes by Thomas Carlyle

Speech is human, silence is divine, yet also brutish and dead: therefore we must learn both arts.

Notebooks (1830)

No sadder proof can be given by a man of his own littleness than disbelief in great men.

Heroes and Hero-Worship (1840)

The great law of culture is: Let each become all that he was created capable of being.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

A well-written Life is almost as rare as a well-spent one.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

History is the essence of innumerable biographies.

Critical and Miscellaneous Essays (1827)

All Thomas Carlyle quotes →

You may also like

Artists shouldn't be made famous.

Kate Bush

Fame is a form—perhaps the worst form—of incomprehension.

Jorge Luis Borges The Garden of Forking Paths (1942)

Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt yet start at shame.

Charles Churchill The Author (1763)

In the future everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.

Andy Warhol

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Thomas Carlyle (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.