Fame is the inheritance not of the dead, but of the living. It is we who look back with lofty pride to the great names of antiquity, who drink of that flood of glory as of a river, and refresh our wings in it for future flight.
WILLIAM HAZLITT, Characteristics
- What is Fortune, what is Fame?
- Futile gold and phantom name--
- Riches buried in a cave,
- Glory written on a grave.
HENRY VAN DYKE, "The Talisman"
Fame and secrecy are the high and low ends of the same fascination.
I have way too many commitments. I get pulled in too many directions and I never seem to be able to satisfy anybody. People get turned on by knowing a celebrity, even my friends and family. They feel that there's something exciting about me, but in reality there's no substance to it. People in airports just hold on to me expecting something and it seems that I always come up empty. It's frustrating because I’m trying to please everybody, and ya just can’t do that ... at least I can’t.
TIM ALLEN, Laugh Factory Magazine, 1994
Fame is a bright flower, but weeds abound mostly around it.
Greatness is a transitory experience. It is never consistent. It depends in part upon the myth-making imagination of humankind. The person who experiences greatness must have a feeling for the myth he is in. He must reflect what is projected upon him.
The more well-known you are, you become a target.
CALVIN KLEIN, Larry King Live, Jun. 5, 2000
Of present fame think little, and of future less. The praises that we receive after we are buried, like the posies that are strewn over our graves, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead; the dead are gone, either to a place where they hear them not, or where, if they do, they will despise them.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON, Lacon
Ah, fortune and fame shall follow me ... and I shall dwell in the world of the chosen for a few moments of fleeting ecstasy; ere the seven burly lads turn into creditors and hustle me off to debtors' prison at last.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON, The Proud Highway
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