
“Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.”
Book I, Ch. 39
Attributed
Ode to Tranquillity
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
“Fame and tranquility can never be bedfellows.”
Book I, Ch. 39
Attributed
“All my moves were designed to promote the happiness and wellbeing of my family, rather than fame.”
As quoted in his obituary in The Times (11 July 2003) http://www.fpp.co.uk/History/Nuremberg/Times110703.html
“What rage for fame attends both great and small!
Better be damned than mentioned not at all.”
To the Royal Academicians; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Some questions of interpretation
“As to Mr. Lincoln’s name and fame and memory, — all is safe.”
Letter to Lucy Webb Hayes (16 April 1865)
Diary and Letters of Rutherford Birchard Hayes (1922 - 1926)
Context: As to Mr. Lincoln’s name and fame and memory, — all is safe. His firmness, moderation, goodness of heart; his quaint humor, his perfect honesty and directness of purpose; his logic his modesty his sound judgment, and great wisdom; the contrast between his obscure beginnings and the greatness of his subsequent position and achievements; his tragic death, giving him almost the crown of martyrdom, elevate him to a place in history second to none other of ancient or modern times. His success in his great office, his hold upon the confidence and affections of his countrymen, we shall all say are only second to Washington’s; we shall probably feel and think that they are not second even to his.
Book II
Exilius http://www.pierre-marteau.com/editions/1715-exilius.html (1715)
Part Three, Ch. 11
Source: On the Road (1957)
Context: In 1942 I was the star in one of the filthiest dramas of all time. I was a seaman, and went to the Imperial Café on Scollay Square in Boston to drink; I drank sixty glasses of beer and retired to the toilet, where I wrapped myself around the toilet bowl and went to sleep. During the night at least a hundred seamen and assorted civilians came in and cast their sentient debouchements on me till I was unrecognizably caked. What difference does it make after all? — anonymity in the world of men is better than fame in heaven, for what's heaven? what's earth? All in the mind.
Tim Teeman, "The importance of being Childish", http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22876-2475809.html The Times, 2006-12-02
Childish's name is the most prominent in Tracey Emin's Everyone I have Ever Slept With 1963–1995, appliquéd names in a tent (destroyed in the Momart warehouse fire).
I Kings 8:41-43 on the dedication of the Temple in Jerusalem
“In tranquility one recollects them with affection, their instinct is good, crazy family good.”
Superman Comes to the Supermarket (1960)