“I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me.”

—  P.T. Barnum

As quoted in Philip B. Kunhardt, et alm P. T. Barnum: America's Greatest Showman (1995), ISBN 0-679-43574-3, p. vi

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update July 12, 2022. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "I am a showman by profession…and all the gilding shall make nothing else of me." by P.T. Barnum?
P.T. Barnum photo
P.T. Barnum 17
American showman and businessman 1810–1891

Related quotes

Walt Whitman photo

“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before, or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.”

Walt Whitman (1819–1892) American poet, essayist and journalist
Paul Klee photo

“The conviction that painting is the right profession grows stronger and stronger in me. Writing is the only other thing I still feel attracted to. Perhaps when I am mature I shall go back to it.”

Paul Klee (1879–1940) German Swiss painter

Quote (1899), # 93, in The Diaries of Paul Klee, translation: Pierre B. Schneider, R. Y. Zachary and Max Knight; publisher, University of California Press, 1964
1895 - 1902

Catherine of Genoa photo

“I shall never rest until I am hidden and enclosed in that divine heart wherein all created forms are lost, and, so lost, remain thereafter all divine; nothing else can satisfy true, pure, and simple love”

Catherine of Genoa (1447–1510) Italian author and nurse

Life and Doctrine

Vincent Van Gogh photo

“I am sure you will like it, it is such a fine business [art-dealer].... I am so glad that we shall both be in the same profession [art dealing] and in the same firm”

Vincent Van Gogh (1853–1890) Dutch post-Impressionist painter (1853-1890)

Goupil and Co.
Quote in his letter to brother Theo from The Hague, The Netherlands (13 December 1872); as quoted in Vincent van Gogh, edited by Alfred H. Barr; Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1935 https://www.moma.org/documents/moma_catalogue_1996_300061887.pdf, p. 17 (letter 2)
Vincent's profession then was picture dealer at Goupil and Co., with branches a. o. in The Hague, London and Paris
1870s

“Now that I know that I am no wiser than anyone else, does this wisdom make me wiser?”

Hugh Prather (1938–2010) American writer

Source: Notes to Myself: My Struggle to Become a Person

Christopher Paolini photo

““I am the victor. In the end nothing else matters.’”

Christopher Paolini book Inheritance

Galbatorix
Inheritance (2011)

Mark Twain photo

“Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Letter to Gertrude Natkin, 2 March 1906 http://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/53b4cf90-7739-0132-f12c-58d385a7b928

Nisargadatta Maharaj photo

“(…) I am all and all is me. Being the world I am not afraid of the world. Being all, what am I to be afraid of? Water is not afraid of water, nor fire of fire. (…) It is attachment to a name and shape that breeds fear. I am not attached. I am nothing, and nothing is not afraid of no thing. On the contrary, everything is afraid of the Nothing, for when a thing touches Nothing, it becomes nothing. (…)”

Nisargadatta Maharaj (1897–1981) Indian guru

Nothingness
Source: "I am That." P.88.

Kate Chopin photo

“We shall be everything to each other. Nothing else shall be of any consequence.”

Kate Chopin book The Awakening

Source: The Awakening

Julian of Norwich photo

“That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well.”

Julian of Norwich (1342–1416) English theologian and anchoress

The Thirteenth Revelation, Chapter 32
Context: Our Faith is grounded in God’s word, and it belongeth to our Faith that we believe that God’s word shall be saved in all things; and one point of our Faith is that many creatures shall be condemned: as angels that fell out of Heaven for pride, which be now fiends; and man in earth that dieth out of the Faith of Holy Church: that is to say, they that be heathen men; and also man that hath received christendom and liveth unchristian life and so dieth out of charity: all these shall be condemned to hell without end, as Holy Church teacheth me to believe. And all this standing, methought it was impossible that all manner of things should be well, as our Lord shewed in the same time.
And as to this I had no other answer in Shewing of our Lord God but this: That which is impossible to thee is not impossible to me: I shall save my word in all things and I shall make all things well. Thus I was taught, by the grace of God, that I should steadfastly hold me in the Faith as I had aforehand understood, therewith that I should firmly believe that all things shall be well, as our Lord shewed in the same time.
For this is the Great Deed that our Lord shall do, in which Deed He shall save His word and He shall make all well that is not well. How it shall be done there is no creature beneath Christ that knoweth it, nor shall know it till it is done; according to the understanding that I took of our Lord’s meaning in this time.

Related topics