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Fame Quotes

Pope leads, followed by Shakespeare, Homer, Edward Young and Virgil, which is about right for a topic that was a poet’s favourite for centuries. The sourced lines are short. Milton’s Lycidas (1637) says fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil; Byron’s Monody on the Death of Sheridan (1816) says folly loves the martyrdom of fame; and Swift, in 1711, calls censure the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.

Flagged: a passage on living for something and leaving a monument of virtue, credited to Thomas Chalmers, is marked misattributed, and two Dryden passages, one about artists working for better fame and one about a poet’s chance of success, are disputed.

Random quote on Fame

Most quoted on fame:

No, fame has really favoured me in so many ways. I thank God for that.

Doris Simeon

Fame became a big part of my life in my early years but I didn’t want that to define me. I learned to be a person of worth aside from that.

Euodia Samson

It was a day of blackest deed
When Delhi streets of fame
Did glitter well by cursed greed
Of harsh Timoor the lame.

Kuvempu Poet, nature lover and humanist (2004)

Fame always finds the village idiot.

Ron English Ron English's Fauxlosophy (2016)

(To his courtiers, after hearing about Jesus' fame) This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead, and therefore these powers are at work in him.

Herod Antipas

And I charged you with extortions
On the nobler fames of old,—
Ay, and sometimes thought your Porsons
Stained the purple they would fold.

Elizabeth Barrett Browning

Celebrities cannot afford to be egoistic due to fame. We’re servants to the public and if we become carried away, we trigger our own downfall.

Rebecca Chisamba

The rust will find the sword of fame,
The dust will hide the crown;
Ay, none shall nail so high his name
Time will not tear it down.

John Vance Cheney

My attitude is one of unswerving devotion to myself. I am single-minded in my pursuit of money, fame and power. I also collect spoons.

Shaun Micallef

Success doesn't change you; fame does.

Whitney Houston

I write for love, respect, money, fame, honor, redemption. I write to be included in a world I feel rejected by.

A. R. Ammons Paris Review interview (1996)

Fame without the money to insulate you from it is one of the most wretched human conditions possible. (p. 80)

Douglas Coupland Generation A (2009)

Though all the East did quake to hear
Of Alexander's dreadful name,
And all the West did likewise fear
To hear of Julius Cæsar's fame.

Robert Southwell

I am still who I am. Fame has not changed anything about me. Fame has only taught me to be more humble.

Yewande Adekoya

I don't like fame, I prefer to have no profile. But this is not possible for me. This is what I do, so I just have to find a way of being comfortable with it.

Caster Semenya

Glory and fame do not mean much to me.

Ahlam Mosteghanemi

…a fetid cabaret with a beer-bar, two houses of ill-fame disguised as coffee-shops…

Anthony Burgess Beds in the East (1959)

Fame is almost a poison. I couldn’t care less, in fact I lived better when I was a nobody.

Bode Miller

my fame I think made it easier for more women in the north to identify as photographers, to want to be photographers

Fati Abubakar

I’m not doing acting for fame or to be a celebrity. I do it because it’s a calling. I believe I was chosen to tell these stories and bring hope to people

Khayalethu Xaba

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