This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
"Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgment. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and a vapor, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion." - Marcus Aurelius, Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus
"Young people imagine there is great value in fame. Those with life experience know that in truth publicity is extremely short-lived. The nature of the world is that every piece of news makes an impression for only a very short time. After those few minutes the impression is erased and quickly forgotten. It is as if it never was." - Yosef Leib Bloch, fully R' Yosef Yehudah Leib Bloch
"The child’s grief throbs against the round of its little heart as heavily as the man’s sorrow; and the one finds as much delight in his kite or drum as the other in striking the springs of enterprise or soaring on the wings of fame." - Edwin Hubbell Chapin
"Those who despise fame seldom deserve it. We are apt to undervalue the purchase we cannot reach, to conceal our poverty the better. It is a spark which kindles upon the best fuel, and burns brightest in the bravest breast." - Jeremy Collier
"Good sense, good health, good conscience, and good fame - all these belong to virtue, and all prove that virtue has a title to your love." - William Cowper
"Though a hundred crooked paths may conduct to a temporary success, the one plain and straight path of public and private virtue can alone lead to a pure and lasting fame and the blessings of posterity." - Edward Everett
"Honesty is a warrant of far more safety than fame." - Owen Feltham
"There is no man but for his own interest hath an obligation to be honest. There may; be sometimes temptations to be otherwise; but, all cares cast up, he shall find it the greatest ease, the highest profit, the best pleasure, the most safety, and the noblest fame, to hold the horns of this altar, which in all assays, can in himself protect him." - Owen Feltham
"Vanity is so closely allied to virtue and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former." - David Hume
"The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous that others should think us still better than we think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve praise is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable, and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch at every confirmation." -
"The thirst for fame is much greater than that for virtue; for who would embrace virtue itself if you take away its rewards." - Juvenal, fully Decimus Junius Juvenalis NULL
"Who despises fame will soon renounce the virtues that deserve it." - David Mallet, also David Malloch
"What is good” I asked in a musing mood. Order, said the law court; Knowledge said the school; Truth, said the wise man; Pleasure, said the fool; Love, said the maiden; Beauty, said the sage. Fame, said the soldier; Equity, said the seer. Spoke my heart sadly: “The answer is not here.” then within my bosom softly this I heard: “Each heart holds the secret: Kindness is the word.”" -
"Do good by stealth, and blush to find it fame." - Alexander Pope
"I make little account of genealogical trees. Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fame." - Mikhail D. Skobeleff or Skobeolev, fully Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev
"Mere family never made a man great. Thought and deed, not pedigree, are the passports to enduring fame." - Mikhail D. Skobeleff or Skobeolev, fully Mikhail Dmitrievich Skobelev
"The crown and glory of life is character. It is the noblest possession of a man, constituting a rank in itself, and estate in the general good will; dignifying every station, and exacting every position in society. It exercises a greater power than wealth and secures all the honor without the jealousies of fame. It carries with it an influence which always tells; for it is the result of proved honor, rectitude and consistency - qualities which, perhaps more than any others, command the general confidence and respect of mankind." - Samuel Smiles
"No true and permanent fame can be founded, except in labors which promote the happiness of mankind." - Charles Sumner
"All man’s efforts, all his impulses to life, are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger, virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom." -
"Honest work bears a lovely face for it is the father of pleasure and the mother of good fortune. It is the keystone of prosperity and the sire of fame. And best of all, work is relief from sorrow and the handmaiden of happiness." - Eugene P. Bertin, fully Eugene Peter Bertin
"Poetry should be vital - either stirring our blood by its divine movements or snatching our breath by its divine perfection. To do both is supreme glory, to do either is enduring fame." - Augustine Birrell
"Fame - a few words upon a tombstone, and the truth of those not to be depended on." - John Christian Bovee
"Better than fame is still the wish for fame, the constant training for glorious strife." - Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton, fully Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, Lord Lytton
"A man must love a thing very much if he not only practices it without any hope of fame and money, but even practices it without any hope of doing it well." - G. K. Chesterton, fully Gilbert Keith Chesterton
"Fame creates its own standard. A guy who twitches his lips is just another guy with a lip twitch - unless he’s Humphrey Bogart." - Sammy Davis, Jr., born Samuel George "Sammy" Davis Jr.
"That person lives in hell who gets what he desires too soon. Whether he finds his happiness in wealth, power, fame or women, or in a combination of all, that happiness will be meaningless if it robs him of his desire. Heaven is a country through which we are permitted to search eagerly and with hope for what we want." - Thomas Dreier
"Set happiness before you as an end, no matter in what guise of wealth, or fame, or oblivion even, and you will not attain it. But renounce it and seek the pleasure of God, and that instant is the birth of you own." - Arthur Sherburne Hardy
"Happiness is the legitimate fruitage of love and service. Set happiness before you as an end, no matter in what guise of wealth, or fame, or oblivion even, and you will not attain it. But renounce it and seek the pleasure of God, and that instant is the birth of your own." - Arthur Sherburne Hardy
"The common people are but ill judges of a man’s merits; they are slaves to fame, and their eyes are dazzled with the pomp of titles and large retinue. No wonder, then, that they bestow their honors on those who least deserve them." - Horace, full name Quintus Horatius Flaccus NULL
"Someday you will meet a man who cares for none of these things [money, power and fame]... and then you will know how poor you are." - Rudyard Kipling
"Fame can never make us lie down contently on a death-bed." - Alexander Pope
"Time magnifies everything after death; a man’s fame is increased as it passes from mouth to mouth after his burial." - Propertius, fully Sextus Propertius NULL
"If a man loves the labor of his trade, apart from any question of success or fame, the gods have called him." - Robert Louis Stevenson, fully Robert Louis Balfour Stevenson
"Integrity of life is fame’s best friend." - Daniel Webster
"Lust for fame and fortune is like an intoxication. While a man is intoxicated, he doesn’t realize it. It’s only after it is all over that he realizes that everything is like an illusion. If men could realize this all the time, there would be much less trouble on earth, and there would be much happier people too." - Li Ju-chen
"Wealth and fame are of dubious value when we think that life is like a fleeting dream." - Li Ju-chen
"Do not care overly much for wealth or power or fame, or one day you will meet someone who cares for none of these things, and you will realize how poor you have become." - Rudyard Kipling
"Fame or integrity: which is more important? Money or happiness: which is more valuable? Success or failure: which is more destructive? If you look to others for fulfillment, you will never be truly fulfilled. If you happiness depends on money you will never be happy with yourself. Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you." - Lao Tzu, ne Li Urh, also Laotse, Lao Tse, Lao Tse, Lao Zi, Laozi, Lao Zi, La-tsze
"Our souls are not hungry for fame, comfort, wealth, or power. Our souls are hungry for meaning, for the sense that we have figured out how to live so that our lives matter, so that the world will be at least a little bit different for our having passed through it." - Harold Kushner, fully Harold Samuel Kushner
"Significance does not depend on fame, power, wealth, or social standing. It depends on the value one provides - directly or indirectly - to those persons who can thereby make their lives happier or more meaningful or even more significant." - Irving Singer
"Everyone can make a claim to honor; very few to fame, as being attainable only in virtue of extraordinary achievements." - Arthur Schopenhauer
"Nothing arouses ambition in the heart like the clarion-call of another's fame." - Baltasar Gracián
"All men are idolaters, some of fame, others of self-interest, most of pleasure." - Baltasar Gracián
"Fame is what you have taken, character is what you give. When to this truth you awaken, then you begin to live." - Bayard Taylor