
“The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.”
38
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)
Act I, sc. vii
Wallenstein (1798), Part II - Wallensteins Tod (The Death of Wallenstein)
“The truly enlightened man has no learning, no virtue, no accomplishments, no fame.”
38
Essays in Idleness (1967 Columbia University Press, Trns: Donald Keene)
“All else is Fortune's in this mortal state;
But Virtue soars beyond her love and hate.”
Che dona e tolle ogn'altro ben Fortuna;
Sol in virtù non ha possanza alcuna.
Canto III, stanza 37 (tr. W. S. Rose)
Orlando Furioso (1532)
“Fame is not the glory; virtue is the goal, and Fame only a messenger to bring more to the fold.”
Degrees: Thought Capsules and Micro Tales (1989)
The Epitaph, St. 1
Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard http://www.thomasgray.org/cgi-bin/display.cgi?text=elcc (written 1750, publ. 1751)
Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 450.
Epode, lines 1-4
The Works of Ben Jonson, First Folio (1616), The Forest
“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.