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.
I was lucky in that I was introduced to fame very-- in a very slow, incremental way.
Thus fights Ulysses, thus his fame extends;
A formidable man, but to his friends.
All arts and artists Theseus could command,
Who sold for hire, or wrought for better fame.
None despise fame more heartily than those who have no possible claim to it.