Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)
No Time like the old Time; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.”
38
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)
“Virtue has her heroes too
As well as Fame and Fortune.”
Act I, sc. vii
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)
“For the fame of riches and beauty is fickle and frail, while virtue is eternally excellent.”
Nam divitiarum et formae gloria fluxa atque fragilis est, virtus clara aeternaque habetur.
For the glory of wealth and beauty is fleeting and perishable; that of the mind is illustrious and immortal.
Source: Bellum Catilinae (c. 44 BC), Chapter I; Variant translation:
“Fame in arms or art, however conspicuous, is naught, unless bottomed in virtue.”
Letter to his son, Charles Carter Lee, as quoted in R.E.Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman, Vol. I, p.32.
sane
Fame, written with Carlos Alomar and John Lennon
Song lyrics, Young Americans (1975)
“O glory of commanding! O vain thirst
Of that same empty nothing we call fame!”
Stanzas 94–95 (tr. Richard Fanshawe); the Old Man of Restelo.
Epic poetry, Os Lusíadas (1572), Canto IV
Context: But an old man of venerable look
(Standing upon the shore amongst the crowds)
His eyes fixed upon us (on ship-board), shook
His head three times, overcast with sorrow's clouds:
And (straining his voice more, than well could brook
His aged lungs: it rattled in our shrouds)
Out of a science, practice did attest,
Let fly these words from an oraculous breast:O glory of commanding! O vain thirst
Of that same empty nothing we call fame!
Source: The Souls of Black Folk (1903), Ch. V: Of the Wings of Atalanta
