Acquaintance lessens fame.
With fame, you know, you can read about yourself, somebody else’s ideas about you, but what’s important is how you feel about yourself – for survival and living day to day with what comes up.
To step from your pedestal at the zenith of your fame – what could be a grander gesture?
There’s this sense that of course you want to be famous. When you’re a performer, of course you want an audience, but it’s very, very different from courting fame.
There is only one thing in the world worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.
There have been as great Souls unknown to fame as any of the most famous.
The longer a man’s fame is likely to last, the later it will be in coming.[Wird sogar der Ruhm, je länger er zu dauern hat, desto später eintreten.]
The fame of great men should always be judged by the methods they employed to achieve it.[La gloire des grands hommes se doit toujours mesurer aux moyens dont ils se sont servis pour l’acquérir.]
Riches, one may say, are like sea-water: the more you drink, the thirstier you become; and the same is true of fame.[Der Reichtum gleicht dem Seewasser: je mehr man davon trinkt, desto durstiger wird man. – Dasselbe gilt vom Ruhm.]
Name and fame! to fly sublime thro’ the courts, the camps, the schools, is to be the ball of Time, bandied by the hands of fools.
My great comfort is, that the temporary celebrity I have wrung from the world has been in the very teeth of all opinions and prejudices.
If fame belonged to me, I could not escape her; if she did not, the longest day would pass me on the chase, and the approbation of my dog would forsake me then. My barefoot rank is better.
