“Fame is but a fruit tree:
So very unsound.
It can never flourish
Till its stalk is in the ground.
So men of fame
Can never find a way
Till time has flown
Far from their dying day.
Forgotten while you're here,
Remembered for a while.
A much updated ruin
From a much outdated style.”

—  Nick Drake

Fruit Tree
Song lyrics, Five Leaves Left (1969)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "Fame is but a fruit tree: So very unsound. It can never flourish Till its stalk is in the ground. So men of fame C…" by Nick Drake?
Nick Drake photo
Nick Drake 22
British singer-songwriter 1948–1974

Related quotes

John Muir photo

“We all travel the milky way together, trees and men; but it never occurred to me until this storm-day, while swinging in the wind, that trees are travelers, in the ordinary sense. They make many journeys, not very extensive ones, it is true; but our own little comes and goes are only little more than tree-wavings — many of them not so much.”

John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American naturalist and author

" A Wind Storm in the Forests of the Yuba http://books.google.com/books?id=zj2gAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA55", Scribner's Monthly, volume XVII, number 1 (November 1878) pages 55-59 (at page 59); modified slightly and reprinted in The Mountains of California http://www.sierraclub.org/john_muir_exhibit/writings/the_mountains_of_california/ (1894), chapter 10: A Wind-Storm in the Forests
1890s, The Mountains of California (1894)

Hal David photo
Henry Ward Beecher photo

“Success is full of promise till men get it; and then it is last year's nest from which the bird has flown.”

Henry Ward Beecher (1813–1887) American clergyman and activist

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), p. 567

Cameron Diaz photo

“Fame does not define me. If you are looking for fame to define you, then you will never be happy and you’ll always be searching for happiness, and you will never find it in fame. Fulfillment comes from within you, by being authentic to yourself — not chasing fame.”

Cameron Diaz (1972) American actress

Human the movie: Cameron's interview https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-HvL3TSf-8 ( New York Post http://nypost.com/2015/12/17/cameron-diaz-fame-will-never-make-you-happy/)

Michel De Montaigne photo

“Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.”

Michel De Montaigne (1533–1592) (1533-1592) French-Occitan author, humanistic philosopher, statesman

Book I, Ch. 39
Attributed

Brigitte Bardot photo

“Fame had brought me so much unhappiness.”

Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist
Luís de Camões photo

“And say, has fame so dear, so dazzling charms?
Must brutal fierceness and the trade of arms,
Conquest, and laurels dipped in blood, be prized,
While life is scorned, and all its joys despised?”

Luís de Camões (1524–1580) Portuguese poet

Stanza 99 (tr. William Julius Mickle)-->
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto IV

Li Bai photo

“Enjoy a cup of wine while you're alive!
Do not care if your fame will not survive!”

Li Bai (701–762) Chinese poet of the Tang dynasty poetry period

"Hard Is the Way of the World" III http://wengu.tartarie.com/wg/wengu.php?no=84&l=Tangshi, trans. Witter Bynner

Booker T. Washington photo

“No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem.”

Chapter XIV: The Atlanta Exposition Address http://books.google.com/books?id=xN45ZsUMgKEC&q=%22No+race+can+prosper+till+it+learns+that+there+is+as+much+dignity+in+tilling+a+field+as+in+writing+a+poem+It+is+at+the+bottom+of+life+we+must+begin+and+not+at+the+top%22&pg=PA220#v=onepage
1900s, Up From Slavery (1901)
Context: No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top.

Warren Farrell photo

Related topics