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.
Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view,
Brave men would act though scandal would ensue.
Unblemish'd let me live or die unknown;
Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!
Better to leave undone, than by our deed
Acquire too high a fame, when him we serve's away.
Fame, (fame) what you get is no tomorrow
Fame, (fame) what you need you have to borrow
Fame (fame).
Who fears not to do ill yet fears the name,
And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Rash combat oft immortalizes man.
If he should fall, he is renowned in song.
Sloth views the towers of fame with envious eyes,
Desirous still, still impotent to rise.