Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Fame
A niche in the temple of Fame.
Owes its origin to the establishment of the Pantheon (1791) as a receptacle for distinguished men.
Were not this desire of fame very strong, the difficulty of obtaining it, and the danger of losing it when obtained, would be sufficient to deter a man from so vain a pursuit.
Addison—The Spectator. No. 255.
And what after all is everlasting fame? Altogether vanity.
Antoninus—Med. 4. 33.
Ah! who can tell how hard it is to climb
The steep where Fame’s proud temple shines afar!
Beattie—The Minstrel. St. 1.
Nothing can cover his high fame but Heaven:
No pyramids set off his memories
But the eternal substance of his greatness;
To which I leave him.
Beaumont and Fletcher—The False One. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 169.
The best-concerted schemes men lay for fame,
Die fast away: only themselves die faster.
The far-fam’d sculptor, and the laurell’d bard,
Those bold insurancers of deathless fame,
Supply their little feeble aids in vain.
Blair—The Grave. L. 185.
Herostratus lives that burnt the temple of Diana; he is almost lost that built it.
Sir Thomas Browne—Hydriotaphia. Ch. V.
What is the end of Fame? ’tis but to fill
A certain portion of uncertain paper:
Some liken it to climbing up a hill,
Whose summit, like all hills, is lost in vapour:
For this men write, speak, preach, and heroes kill,
And bards burn what they call their “midnight taper,”
To have, when the original is dust,
A name, a wretched picture, and worse bust.
Byron—Don Juan. Canto I. St. 218.
I awoke one morning and found myself famous.
Byron—From Moore’s Life of Byron.
Folly loves the martyrdom of fame.
Byron—Monody on the Death of Sheridan. L. 68.
O Fame!—if I e’er took delight in thy praises,
’Twas less for the sake of thy high-sounding phrases,
Than to see the bright eyes of the dear one discover
She thought that I was not unworthy to love her.
Byron—Stanzas Written on the Road Between Florence and Pisa.
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.
Carlyle—Essay. Goethe.
Scarcely two hundred years back can Fame recollect articulately at all; and there she but maunders and mumbles.
Carlyle—Past and Present. Ch. XVII.
Men the most infamous are fond of fame,
And those who fear not guilt, yet start at shame.
Churchill—The Author. L. 233.
The aspiring youth that fired the Ephesian dome
Outlives, in fame, the pious fool that rais’d it.
Colley Cibber—Richard III. (Altered.) Act III. Sc. 1.
Je ne dois qu’à moi seul toute ma renommée.
To myself alone do I owe my fame.
Corneille—L’Excuse à Ariste.
Non é il mondam romore altro che un fiato
Di vento, che vien quinci ed or vien quindi,
E muta nome, perchè muta lato.
The splendors that belong unto the fame of earth are but a wind, that in the same direction lasts not long.
Dante—Purgatoria. XI. 100.
La vostra nominanza é color d’erba,
Che viene e va; e quei la discolora
Per cui ell’ esce della terra acerba.
All your renown is like the summer flower that blooms and dies; because the sunny glow which brings it forth, soon slays with parching power.
Dante—Purgatoria. XI. 115.
What shall I do to be forever known,
And make the age to come my own?
Cowley—The Motto. L. 1.
Who fears not to do ill yet fears the name,
And free from conscience, is a slave to fame.
Sir John Denham—Cooper’s Hill. L. 129.
The Duke of Wellington brought to the post of first minister immortal fame; a quality of success which would almost seem to include all others.
Benj. Disraeli—Sybil. Bk. I. Ch. III.
Fame then was cheap, and the first courier sped;
And they have kept it since, by being dead.
Dryden—The Conquest of Granada. Epilogue.
’Tis a petty kind of fame
At best, that comes of making violins;
And saves no masses, either. Thou wilt go
To purgatory none the less.
George Eliot—Stradivarius. L. 85.
Fame is the echo of actions, resounding them to the world, save that the echo repeats only the last part, but fame relates all, and often more than all.
Fuller—The Holy and Profane States. Of Fame.
From kings to cobblers ’tis the same;
Bad servants wound their masters’ fame.
Gay—Fables. The Squire and his Cur. Pt. II.
Der rasche Kampf verewigt einen Mann,
Er falle gleich, so preiset ihn das Lied.
Rash combat oft immortalizes man.
If he should fall, he is renowned in song.
Goethe—Iphigenia auf Tauris. V. 6. 43.
The temple of fame stands upon the grave: the flame that burns upon its altars is kindled from the ashes of dead men.
Hazlitt—Lectures on the English Poets. Lecture VIII.
Thou hast a charmed cup, O Fame!
A draught that mantles high,
And seems to lift this earthly frame
Above mortality.
Away! to me—a woman—bring
Sweet water from affection’s spring.
Felicia D. Hemans—Woman and Fame.
If that thy fame with ev’ry toy be pos’d,
’Tis a thin web, which poysonous fancies make;
But the great souldier’s honour was compos’d
Of thicker stuf, which would endure a shake.
Wisdom picks friends; civility plays the rest;
A toy shunn’d cleanly passeth with the best.
Herbert—The Temple. The Church Porch. St. 38.
Short is my date, but deathless my renown.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. IX. L. 535. Pope’s trans.
The rest were vulgar deaths unknown to fame.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XI. L. 394. Pope’s trans.
The life, which others pay, let us bestow,
And give to fame what we to nature owe.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XII. L. 393. Pope’s trans.
Earth sounds my wisdom, and high heaven my fame.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. IX. L. 20. Pope’s trans.
But sure the eye of time beholds no name,
So blest as thine in all the rolls of fame.
Homer—Odyssey. Bk. XI. L. 591. Pope’s trans.
Where’s Cæsar gone now, in command high and able?
Or Xerxes the splendid, complete in his table?
Or Tully, with powers of eloquence ample?
Or Aristotle, of genius the highest example?
Jacopone—De Contemptu Mundi. Trans. by Abraham Coles.
Fame has no necessary conjunction with praise: it may exist without the breath of a word: it is a recognition of excellence which must be felt but need not be spoken. Even the envious must feel it: feel it, and hate it in silence.
Mrs. Jameson—Memoirs and Essays. Washington Allston.
Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness.
Mrs. Jameson—Memoirs and Essays. Washington Allston.
Miserum est aliorum incumbere famæ.
It is a wretched thing to live on the fame of others.
Juvenal—Satires. VIII. 76.
“Let us now praise famous men”—
Men of little showing—
For their work continueth,
And their work continueth,
Greater than their knowing.
Kipling—Words prefixed to Stalky & Co. First line from Ecclesiasticus. XLIV. 1.
Fame comes only when deserved, and then is as inevitable as destiny, for it is destiny.
Longfellow—Hyperion. Bk. I. Ch. VIII.
Building nests in Fame’s great temple,
As in spouts the swallows build.
Longfellow—Nuremberg. St. 16.
His fame was great in all the land.
Longfellow—Tales of a Wayside Inn. The Student’s Tale. Emma and Eginhard. L. 50.
Nolo virum facili redimit qui sanguine famam;
Hunc volo laudari qui sine morte potest.
I do not like the man who squanders life for fame; give me the man who living makes a name.
Martial—Epigrams. I. 9. 5.
Si post fata venit gloria non propero.
If fame comes after death, I am in no hurry for it.
Martial—Epigrams. V. 10. 12.
Though the desire of fame be the last weakness
Wise men put off.
Massinger—The Very Woman. Act V. Sc. 4.
Read but o’er the Stories
Of men most fam’d for courage or for counsaile
And you shall find that the desire of glory
Was the last frailty wise men put of;
Be they presidents.
Sir John Van Olden Barnevelt. Reprinted by A. H. Bullen.
Fame lulls the fever of the soul, and makes
Us feel that we have grasp’d an immortality.
Joaquin Miller—Ina. Sc. 4. L. 273.
Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise,
(That last infirmity of noble mind)
To scorn delights, and live laborious days;
But the fair guerdon when we hope to find,
And think to burst out into sudden blaze,
Comes the blind Fury with th’ abhorred shears,
And slits the thin-spun life.
Milton—Lycidas. L. 70.
Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.
Milton—Lycidas. L. 78.
Fame, if not double fac’d, is double mouth’d,
And with contrary blast proclaims most deeds;
On both his wings, one black, the other white,
Bears greatest names in his wild aery flight.
Milton—Samson Agonistes. L. 971.
“Des humeurs desraisonnables des hommes, il semble que les philosophes mesmes se desfacent plus tard et plus envy de cette cy que de nulle autre: c’est la plus revesche et opiniastre; quia etiam bene proficientes animos tentare non cessat.”
Of the unreasoning humours of mankind it seems that (fame) is the one of which the philosophers themselves have disengaged themselves from last and with the most reluctance: it is the most intractable and obstinate; for [as St. Augustine says] it persists in tempting even minds nobly inclined.”
Montaigne—Essays. Bk. I. Ch. XLI. Quoting the Latin from St. Augustine—De Civit. Dei. 5. 14.
I’ll make thee glorious by my pen
And famous by my sword.
Marquis of Montrose—My Dear and Only Love.
Ingenio stimulos subdere fama solet.
The love of fame usually spurs on the mind.
Ovid—Tristium. V. 1. 76.
At pulchrum est digito monstrari et dicier hic est.
It is pleasing to be pointed at with the finger and to have it said, “There goes the man.”
Persius—Satires. I. 28.
To the quick brow Fame grudges her best wreath
While the quick heart to enjoy it throbs beneath:
On the dead forehead’s sculptured marble shown,
Lo, her choice crown—its flowers are also stone.
John James Piatt—The Guerdon.
Who grasp’d at earthly fame,
Grasped wind: nay, worse, a serpent grasped that through
His hand slid smoothly, and was gone; but left
A sting behind which wrought him endless pain.
Pollok—Course of Time. Bk. III. L. 533.
All crowd, who foremost shall be damn’d to fame.
Pope—Dunciad. Bk. III. L. 158. Essay on Man. IV. 284.
Let humble Allen, with an awkward shame,
Do good by stealth, and blush to find it Fame.
Pope—Epilogue to Satire. Dialogue I. L. 135.
Above all Greek, above all Roman fame.
Pope—Epistles of Horace. Ep. I. Bk. II. L. 26.
What’s fame? a fancy’d life in others’ breath.
A thing beyond us, e’en before our death.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 237.
If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shin’d,
The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind:
Or, ravish’d with the whistling of a name,
See Cromwell, damn’d to everlasting fame.
Pope—Essay on Man. Ep. IV. L. 281.
And what is Fame? the Meanest have their Day,
The Greatest can but blaze, and pass away.
Pope—First Book of Horace. Ep. VI. L. 46.
Nor fame I slight, nor for her favors call;
She comes unlocked for, if she comes at all.
Pope—Temple of Fame. L. 513.
Unblemish’d let me live or die unknown;
Oh, grant an honest fame, or grant me none!
Pope—Temple of Fame. L. 523.
Omnia post obitum fingit majora vetustas:
Majus ab exsequiis nomen in ora venit.
Time magnifies everything after death; a man’s fame is increased as it passes from mouth to mouth after his burial.
Propertius—Elegiæ. III. 1. 23.
Your fame shall (spite of proverbs) make it plain
To write in water ’s not to write in vain.
Anon. in preface to Sir William Sanderson—Art of Painting in Water Colours. (1658).
May see thee now, though late, redeem thy name,
And glorify what else is damn’d to fame.
Richard Savage—Character of the Rev. James Foster. L. 43.
I’ll make thee famous by my pen,
And glorious by my sword.
Scott—Legend of Montrose. Ch. XV.
Better to leave undone, than by our deed
Acquire too high a fame, when him we serve’s away.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 14.
Let fame, that all hunt after in their lives,
Live register’d upon our brazen tombs.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 1.
Death makes no conquest of this conqueror:
For now he lives in fame, though not in life.
Richard III. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 87.
He lives in fame, that died in virtue’s cause.
Titus Andronicus. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 390.
Fame is the perfume of heroic deeds.
Socrates.
Sloth views the towers of fame with envious eyes,
Desirous still, still impotent to rise.
Shenstone—Moral Pieces. The Judgment of Hercules. L. 436.
No true and permanent Fame can be founded except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind.
Charles Sumner—Fame and Glory. An Address before the Literary Societies of Amherst College. Aug. 11, 1847.
Censure is the tax a man pays to the public for being eminent.
Swift—Thoughts on Various Subjects.
Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriæ novissima exuitur.
The love of fame is the last weakness which even the wise resign.
Tacitus—Annales. IV.
Modestiæ fama neque summis mortalibus spernenda est.
Modest fame is not to be despised by the highest characters.
Tacitus—Annales. XV. 2.
The whole earth is a sepulchre for famous men.
Thucydides. 2. 43.
Fama est obscurior annis.
The fame (or report) has become obscure through age.
Vergil—Æneid. 7. 205.
Ingrediturque solo, et caput inter nubila condit.
She (Fame) walks on the earth, and her head is concealed in the clouds.
Vergil—Æneid. 4. 177.
In tenui labor, at tenuis non gloria.
The object of the labor was small, but not the fame.
Vergil—Georgics. IV. 6.
Tel brille au second rang, qui s’eclipse au premier.
He shines in the second rank, who is eclipsed in the first.
Voltaire—Henriade. I.
C’est un poids bien pesant qu’un nom trop tôt fameux.
What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous.
Voltaire—Henriade. III.
What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be d—n’d than mentioned not at all.
John Wolcot (Peter Pindar)—To the Royal Academicians. Lyric Odes for the Year 1783. Ode IX.
With fame, in just proportion, envy grows.
Young—Epistle to Mr. Pope. Ep. I. L. 27.
Men should press forward, in fame’s glorious chase;
Nobles look backward, and so lose the race.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire I. L. 129.
Wouldst thou be famed? have those high acts in view,
Brave men would act though scandal would ensue.
Young—Love of Fame. Satire VII. L. 175.
Fame is the shade of immortality,
And in itself a shadow. Soon as caught,
Contemn’d; it shrinks to nothing in the grasp.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night VII. L. 363.