Renown Quotes - Page 2

• The prosperity of a book lies in the minds of readers. Public knowledge and public taste fluctuate; and there come times when works which were once capable of instructing and delighting thousands lose their power, and works, before neglected, emerge into renown.

  George Henry Lewes

  Lying, Book, Mind

  George Henry Lewes (1891). “The Principles of Success in Literature”

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• renown, n. A degree of distinction between notoriety and fame - a little more supportable than the one and a little more intolerable than the other. Sometimes it is conferred by an unfriendly and inconsiderate hand.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Hands, Littles, Degrees

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.181, 谷月社

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• O painter, take care lest the greed for gain prove a stronger incentive than renown in art, for to gain this renown is a far greater thing than is the renown of riches.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Art, Greed, Stronger

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1957). “Notebooks”

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• He who will please the crowd and for the sake of the most ephemeral renown will either proclaim those things which nature does not display or even will publish genuine miracles of nature without regard to deeper causes is a spiritually corrupt person... With the best of intentions I publicly speak to the crowd (which is eager for things new) on the subject of what is to come.

  Johannes Kepler

  Miracle, Doe, Crowds

  Foreword in "De fundamentis astrologiae certioribus" by Johannes Kepler, 1601.

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• Only to two or three persons in all the world are the reminiscences of a man's early youth interesting: to the parent who nursed him; to the fond wife or child mayhap afterwards who loves him; to himself always and supremely--whatever may be his actual prosperity or ill fortune, his present age, illness, difficulties, renown, or disappointments--the dawn of his life still shines brightly for him, the early griefs and delights and attachments remain with him ever faithful and dear.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Children, Disappointment, Grief

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• Arjuna is a warrior of great renown, says he won't fight. He tells Krishna: I can't fight because I love these people. It's immoral. It's unjust. There's no winning.

  Frederick Lenz

  Karma, Yoga, Fighting

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• The glorious memory of brave men is continually renewed; the fame of those who have performed any noble deed is never allowed to die; and the renown of those who have done good service to their country becomes a matter of common knowledge to the multitude, and part of the heritage of posterity.

  Polybius

  Country, Memories, Men

  Polybius, Friedrich Hultsch (1889). “The Histories”

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• Wood burns because it has the proper stuff for that purpose in it; and a man becomes renowned because he has the necessary stuff in him. Renown is not to be sought, and all pursuit of it is vain. A person may, indeed, by skillful conduct and various artificial means, make a sort of name for himself; but if the inner jewel is wanting, all is vanity, and will not last a day.

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  Mean, Men, Vanity

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Johann Peter Eckermann, Frédéric Jacob Soret (1850). “Conversations of Goethe with Eckermann and Soret”, p.103

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• A man's renown is like the hue of grass, Which comes and goes.

  Dante Alighieri

  Men, Hue, Fame

  Dante Alighieri (1948). “Dante”

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• Fame requires every kind of excess. I mean true fame, a devouring neon, not the sombre renown of waning statesmen or chinless kings.

  Don DeLillo

  Kings, Mean, Excess

  Don DeLillo (2011). “Great Jones Street”, p.4, Pan Macmillan

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• Science in England is not a profession: its cultivators are scarcely recognised even as a class. Our language itself contains no single term by which their occupation can be expressed. We borrow a foreign word [Savant] from another country whose high ambition it is to advance science, and whose deeper policy, in accord with more generous feelings, gives to the intellectual labourer reward and honour, in return for services which crown the nation with imperishable renown, and ultimately enrich the human race.

  Charles Babbage

  Country, Ambition, Science

  Charles Babbage (1851). “The Exposition of 1851; or, Views of the industry, the science, and the government of England”, p.189

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• He who wins a thousand common hearts is entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero.

  Washington Irving

  Hero, Heart, Winning

  Washington Irving (1834). “The Complete Works of Washington Irving in One Volume”, p.337

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• He, who practices right, but in the hope of acquiring great renown, is very near to vice.

  Napoleon Bonaparte

  Practice, Vices, Virtue

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• Her virtues, graced with external gifts, Do breed love's settled passions in my heart; And like as rigour of tempestuous gusts Provokes the mightiest hulk against the tide, So am I driven by breath of her renown Either to suffer shipwreck or arrive Where I may have fruition of her love.

  William Shakespeare

  Passion, Heart, Suffering

  William Shakespeare (1823). “The plays of William Shakspeare, pr. from the text of the corrected copies left by G. Steevens and E. Malone, with a selection of notes from the most eminent commentors by A. Chalmers”, p.343

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• 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 Alighieri

  Summer, Flower, September

  Dante Alighieri, Claudia Hamilton Ramsay (1862). “Dante's Divina Commedia Translated Into English, in the Metre and Triple Rhyme of the Original with Notes by Ramsay: Purgatorio”, p.77

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• And no renown can render you well-known:
  For if you think that fame can lengthen life
  By mortal famousness immortalized,
  The day will come that takes your fame as well,
  And there a second death for you awaits.

  Boethius

  Thinking, Fame, Well Known

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• NOTORIETY, n. The fame of one's competitor for public honors. The kind of renown most accessible and acceptable to mediocrity. A Jacob's-ladder leading to the vaudeville stage, with angels ascending and descending.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Leadership, Kindness, Angel

  Ambrose Bierce (2012). “The Devil's Dictionary”, p.85, Courier Corporation

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• Breathes there the man, with soul so dead, Who never to himself hath said, This is my own, my native land! Whose heart hath ne'er within him burn'd, As home his footsteps he hath turn'd From wandering on a foreign strand! If such there breathe, go mark him well; For him no Minstrel raptures swell; High though his titles, proud his name, Boundless his wealth as wish can claim; Despite those titles, power, and pelf, The wretch, concentred all in self, Living, shall forfeit fair renown, And, doubly dying, shall go down To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, Unwept, unhonor'd, and unsung.

  Walter Scott

  Home, Heart, Men

  Sir Walter Scott (1873). “Poetical Works”, p.42

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• Natural ability is by far the best, but many men have succeeded in winning high renown by skill that is the fruit of teaching.

  Pindar

  Teacher, Teaching, Winning

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• No festival of martial glory or warrior's renown is this; no pageant pomp of war-like conquest, no glory of fratricidal strife attend this day. It is dedicated to peace, civilization and the triumphs of industry. It is a demonstration of fraternity and the harbinger of a better age-a more chivalrous time, when labor shall be best honored and well rewarded.

  Peter J. McGuire

  War, Civilization, Honor

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• The ones who count are those persons who - though they may be of little renown - respond to and are responsible for the continuation of the living spirit.

  Martin Buber

  Life, May, Littles

  Martin Buber (2003). “Between Man and Man”, p.121, Routledge

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• Senator [Stephen] Douglas is of world-wide renown. All the anxious politicians of his party, or who have been of his party for years past, have been looking upon him as certainly, at no distant day, to be the President of the United States. They have seen in his round, jolly, fruitful face, post offices, land offices, marshalships, and cabinet appointments, chargeships and foreign missions, bursting and sprouting out in wonderful exuberance ready to be laid hold of by their greedy hands.

  Abraham Lincoln

  Party, Past, Hands

  Abraham Lincoln, Stephen Arnold Douglas (1908). “The Lincoln-Douglas Debates of 1858”

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• Whatever man loves, that is his god. For he carries it in his heart; he goes about with it night and day; he sleeps and wakes with it, be it what it may - wealth or self, pleasure or renown.

  Martin Luther

  Heart, Sleep, Night

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• Newt Gingrich is an idiot of great renown... There's something so hopelessly gross and vile about him it's hard to take him seriously.

  Maurice Sendak

  Idiot, Newts, Gross

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• Mere elegance of language can produce at best but an empty renown.

  Petrarch

  Style, Language, Elegance

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