
“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)
Letter to his son, Charles Carter Lee, as quoted in R.E.Lee: A Biography (1934) by Douglas Southall Freeman, Vol. I, p.32.
“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 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:
LX. FAME
Orphic Sayings
Context: Enduring fame is ever posthumous. The orbs of virtue and genius seldom culminate during their terrestrial periods. Slow is the growth of great names, slow the procession of excellence into arts, institutions, life. Ages alone reflect their fulness of lustre. The great not only unseal, but create the organs by which they are to be seen. Neither Socrates nor Jesus is yet visible to the world.
“There is, however, a limit at which forbearance ceases to be a virtue.”
Observations on a Late Publication on the Present State of the Nation (1769), volume i, p. 273
1760s
“Arms are of little value in the field unless there is wise counsel at home.”
Parvi enim sunt foris arma, nisi est consilium domi.
Book I, section 76 (trans. Walter Miller)
De Officiis – On Duties (44 BC)