Quotes about reputation (466 quotes) | Quotes of famous people

“Worry more about your character than your reputation. Character is what you are, reputation merely what others think you are.”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

Variant: Be more concerned with your character than your reputation, because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.

Thinking

“I don't know if God exists, but it would be better for His reputation if He didn't. ”

Jules Renard (1864–1910) French author (1864-1910)

God

“Dwelling on one side of the Chauci and Chatti, the Cherusci long cherished, unassailed, an excessive and enervating love of peace. This was more pleasant than safe, for to be peaceful is self-deception among lawless and powerful neighbours. Where the strong hand decides, moderation and justice are terms applied only to the more powerful; and so the Cherusci, ever reputed good and just, are now called cowards and fools, while in the case of the victorious Chatti success has been identified with prudence. The downfall of the Cherusci brought with it also that of the Fosi, a neighbouring tribe, which shared equally in their disasters, though they had been inferior to them in prosperous days.”

Tacitus book Germania

Source: Germania (98), Chapter 36

Peace , Justice , Success , Strong

“Endurance is composed of four attributes: eagerness, fear, piety and anticipation (of death). so whoever is eager for Paradise will ignore temptations; whoever fears the fire of Hell will abstain from sins; whoever practices piety will easily bear the difficulties of life and whoever anticipates death will hasten towards good deeds.
Conviction has also four aspects to guard oneself against infatuations of sin; to search for explanation of truth through knowledge; to gain lessons from instructive things and to follow the precedent of the past people, because whoever wants to guard himself against vices and sins will have to search for the true causes of infatuation and the true ways of combating them out and to find those true ways one has to search them with the help of knowledge, whoever gets fully acquainted with various branches of knowledge will take lessons from life and whoever tries to take lessons from life is actually engaged in the study of the causes of rise and fall of previous civilizations.
Justice also has four aspects depth of understanding, profoundness of knowledge, fairness of judgment and dearness of mind; because whoever tries his best to understand a problem will have to study it, whoever has the practice of studying the subject he is to deal with, will develop a clear mind and will always come to correct decisions, whoever tries to achieve all this will have to develop ample patience and forbearance and whoever does this has done justice to the cause of religion and has led a life of good repute and fame.
Jihad is divided into four branches: to persuade people to be obedient to Allah; to prohibit them from sin and vice; to struggle (in the cause of Allah) sincerely and firmly on all occasions and to detest the vicious. Whoever persuades people to obey the orders of Allah provides strength to the believers; whoever dissuades them from vices and sins humiliates the unbelievers; whoever struggles on all occasions discharges all his obligations and whoever detests the vicious only for the sake of Allah, then Allah will take revenge on his enemies and will be pleased with Him on the Day of Judgment.”

Ali book Nahj al-Balagha

Nahj al-Balagha

Life , Death , People , Truth

“The victimisation of individuals or corporations or groups of people is a very dangerous and difficult development. The fact that careers can be ruined and reputations can be savaged without any particular responsibility on the part of those who are doing it… we live in strange times.”

Rowan Atkinson (1955) English actor, comedian, and screenwriter

As quoted in an interview with entertainment.ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Entertainment.ie (2018)

Time , People , Parting

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.”

Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist

Context: It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

Motivational , Deep , Happy , Inspirational

“A bad conscience is easier to cope with than a bad reputation.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist

Source: The Gay Science

“My father said, 'You must never try to make all the money that's in a deal. Let the other fellow make some money too, because if you have a reputation for always making all the money, you won't have many deals.”

J. Paul Getty (1892–1977) American industrialist

J. Paul Getty cited in: Alison Branagan (2009) Making Sense of Business: A No-Nonsense Guide to Business Skills. p. 136

Money

“Around 1945, daily life might have been hard, but the reputation of Disney was at its highest. The voices of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck had stabilized, Snow White and Bambi were huge hits and had received a number of international prizes. It really was like the brightness of a rising sun. And then Japanese children after the war had no choice but to face the flood of Disney comics that accompanied the brainwashing of “American democracy.””

Osamu Tezuka (1928–1989) Japanese cartoonist and animator

That was their merit as propaganda against the Japanese.
Tezuka Osamu and American Comics http://www.tcj.com/tezuka-osamu-and-american-comics/, (1973), as quoted by Ryan Holmberg, The Comics Journal, Jul 16, 2012.

Life , War , Children , Democracy

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation. For your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

Fred Shero (1925–1990) Former ice hockey player and coach

Jackson, Jim, Walking Together Forever: The Broad Street Bullies, Then and Now

Deep , Wise , Life , Powerful

“It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless.”

George Orwell book Down and Out in Paris and London

Source: Down and out in Paris and London (1933), Ch. 31
Context: Beggars do not work, it is said; but then, what is work? A navvy works by swinging a pick. An accountant works by adding up figures. A beggar works by standing out of doors in all weathers and getting varicose veins, bronchitis etc. It is a trade like any other; quite useless, of course — but, then, many reputable trades are quite useless. And as a social type a beggar compares well with scores of others. He is honest compared with the sellers of most patent medicines, high-minded compared with a Sunday newspaper proprietor, amiable compared with a hire-purchase tout-in short, a parasite, but a fairly harmless parasite. He seldom extracts more than a bare living from the community, and, what should justify him according to our ethical ideas, he pays for it over and over in suffering.

“At every word a reputation dies.”

Alexander Pope The Rape of the Lock

Canto III, line 16.
The Rape of the Lock (1712, revised 1714 and 1717)

“The greater the difficulty, the more glory in surmounting it. Skillful pilots gain their reputation from storms and tempests.”

Epictetus (50–138) philosopher from Ancient Greece

“I think I did have a reputation for being grumpy. I don't think I'm grumpy. I have opinions. I have an independent vision. I am a purposeful person. But on a daily basis, I think I'm other than grumpy. I think it is a case where I am coming to do business and not there just to be flattered and cajoled and used.”

Harrison Ford (1942) American film actor and producer

Business , Thinking , Personality

“I don't know how to talk.
Oh! talk to every woman as if you loved her, and to every man as if he bored you, and at the end of your first season you will have the reputation of possessing the most perfect social tact.”

Oscar Wilde A Woman of No Importance

Source: A Woman of No Importance

Love , Perfection , Season

“But lest some unlucky event should happen unfavorable to my reputation, I beg it may be remembered by every gentleman in the room that I this day declare with the utmost sincerity, I do not think myself equal to the command I am honored with.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

Washington's formal acceptance of command of the Army (16 June 1775), quoted in The Writings of George Washington : Life of Washington (1837) edited by Jared Sparks, p. 141
1770s

Thinking , Sincerity

“Cautious, careful people, always casting about to preserve their reputation and social standing, never can bring about a reform. Those who are really in earnest must be willing to be anything or nothing in the world's estimation.”

Susan B. Anthony (1820–1906) American women's rights activist

On the Campaign for Divorce Law Reform (1860)

People , World

“Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Variant: Until you 've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.
Source: Gone with the Wind

Freedom

“Give a man a reputation as an early riser and he can sleep 'til noon.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Sleep

“A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.”

Joseph Hall (1574–1656) British bishop

World

“My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

Night

“Perhaps a man's character was like a tree, and his reputation like its shadow; the shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

As quoted in "Lincoln's Imagination" by Noah Brooks, in Scribner's Monthly (August 1879), p. 586 http://books.google.com/books?id=jOoGAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA586
Posthumous attributions
Variant: Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.

Thinking , Tree

“Associate yourself with Men of good Quality if you Esteem your own Reputation; for 'tis better to be alone than in bad Company.”

George Washington (1732–1799) first President of the United States

This is from a set of maxims which Washington copied out in his own hand as a school-boy: "Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/the-rules-of-civility/" Rule # 56 written out by Washington ca. 1744:
: These maxims originated in the late sixteenth century in France and were popularly circulated during Washington's time. Washington wrote out a copy of the 110 Rules in his school book when he was about sixteen-years old... During the days before mere hero worship had given place to understanding and comprehension of the fineness of Washington's character, of his powerful influence among men, and of the epoch-making nature of the issues he so largely shaped, it was assumed that Washington himself composed the maxims, or at least that he compiled them. It is a satisfaction to find that his consideration for others, his respect for and deference to those deserving such treatment, his care of his own body and tongue, and even his reverence for his Maker, all were early inculcated in him by precepts which were the common practice in decent society the world over. These very maxims had been in use in France for a century and a half, and in England for a century, before they were set as a task for the schoolboy Washington.
:* Charles Moore in his Introduction to George Washington's Rules of Civility and Decent Behaviour in Company and Conversation (1926) http://gwpapers.virginia.edu/documents/civility/index.html, edited by Charles Moore, xi-xv
Misattributed

Men

“If you were going to be successful in the world of crime, you needed a reputation for honesty.”

Terry Pratchett book Feet of Clay

Source: Feet of Clay

World , Success

“Women are the bloodthirsty sex," said Ric sadly. "We get the reputation, but it is only because the women stand behind us, and say, 'Kill it. Squish it.”

Patricia Briggs book Hunting Ground

Source: Hunting Ground

Women , Sex

“Tell someone you are going to rob them and all that will happen is that you'll get a reputation as a truthful man.”

Terry Pratchett (1948–2015) English author

Truth

“Reputation is an idle and most false imposition; oft got without merit and lost without deserving.”

William Shakespeare Othello

Iago, Act II, scene iii.
Source: Othello (1603–4)

Falseness

“When I was a boy a farmer's wife who lived five miles from our village had great fame as a faith-doctor—that was what she called herself. Sufferers came to her from all around, and she laid her hand upon them and said, "Have faith—it is all that is necessary," and they went away well of their ailments. She was not a religious woman, and pretended to no occult powers. She said that the patient's faith in her did the work. Several times I saw her make immediate cures of severe toothaches. My mother was the patient. In Austria there is a peasant who drives a great trade in this sort of industry, and has both the high and the low for patients. He gets into prison every now and then for practising without a diploma, but his business is as brisk as ever when he gets out, for his work is unquestionably successful and keeps his reputation high. In Bavaria there is a man who performed so many great cures that he had to retire from his profession of stage-carpentering in order to meet the demand of his constantly increasing body of customers. He goes on from year to year doing his miracles, and has become very rich. He pretends to no religious helps, no supernatural aids, but thinks there is something in his make-up which inspires the confidence of his patients, and that it is this confidence which does the work, and not some mysterious power issuing from himself.”

Mark Twain Christian Science

Source: Christian Science (1907), Ch. 4

Faith , Confidence , Boy , Business

“If you have had an unfortunate experience, forget it. If you have made a failure in speech, your song, your book, your article, if you have been placed in an embarrassing position, if you have fallen and hurt yourself by a false step, if you have been slandered and abused, do not dwell upon it. There is not a single redeeming feature in these memories, and the presence of their ghosts will rob you of many a happy hour. There is nothing in it. Drop them. Forget them. Wipe them out of your mind forever. If you have been indiscreet, imprudent, if you have been talked about, if your reputation has been injured so that you fear you can never outgrow it or redeem it, do not drag the hideous shadows, the rattling skeletons about with you, Rub them off from the shite of memory. Wipe them out. Forget them. Start with a clean slate and spend all your energies in keeping it clean for the future.”

Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American writer

Masterful Personality (1923).

Books , Fear , Failure , Memory

“If thou desire to profit, read with humility, simplicity, and faithfulness; nor even desire the repute of learning.”

Thomas à Kempis (1380–1471) German canon regular

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 37.

Faith , Learning , Reading

“In a crunch a man's reputation never counts for as much as it ought to. Most people are good-hearted and willing to give a man the benefit of the doubt, but the poisonous few are eager to see others brought down, ruined. … Envy, Bob. Envy eats them alive. If you had money, they'd envy you that. But since you don't, they envy you for having such a good, bright, loving daughter. They envy you for just being a happy man. They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others.”

Dean Koontz book Lightning

Part I, Chapter 1.2, the mysterious stranger's words to Bob Shane
Lightning (1988)

Love , Money , People , Heart

“I am better than my reputation.”

Friedrich Schiller Mary Stuart

Maria Stuart, Act II, sc. iv (1800)

“The Jew has his other side. He has some discreditable ways, though he has not a monopoly of them… He has a reputation for various small forms of cheating, and for practising oppressive usury, and for burning himself out to get the insurance, and for arranging cunning contracts which leave him an exit but lock the other man in, and for smart evasions which find him safe and comfortable just within the strict letter of the law, when court and jury know very well that he has violated the spirit of it.”

Mark Twain book Concerning the Jews

Concerning the Jews (Harper's Magazine, Sept. 1899)

Law , Way , Cheating

“(Sports) provides a wonderful opportunity for initiating acquaintance. Regardless of the degree of our civilization, people still thrill to physical combat and admire the man who excels. He who is of proven merit in the field of major sports has shown to all that he is possessed of strength, vigor, stamina, and courage. The great majority of people want to know such a man…How well I have taken advantage of the football reputation it was my good fortune to gain is for others to judge, but I personally am very thankful for the whole experience and the fun and friends it has brought me.”

Nile Kinnick (1918–1943) College football player

Journal entry (February 22, 1942)

People , Courage , Sport , Football

“For most countries, serving the UN's objectives has never seemed worth even the smallest of risks. Member nations do not want a large, reputable, strong and independent United Nations, no matter their hypocritical pronouncements otherwise. What they want is a weak, beholden, indebted scapegoat of an organization, which they can blame for their failures or steal victories from.”

Roméo Dallaire book Shake Hands with the Devil

Shake Hands with the Devil (2003)

Failure , Strong , Victory , Country

“Alamo has been a strong inspiration for nations striving for freedom all around the globe since 1836. Gvozdansko has not earned public reputation, but profoundly touched the heart of the bitter enemy Ferhat-paša alone in 1578. Croats have a duty and obligation to learn about Gvozdansko.”

Vinko Vrbanić (1951)

Freedom

Freedom , Strong , Learning , Heart

“We are a small nation and need to cooperate across borders. As a result of the good reputation that Sweden has since long it is easy to build relationships.”

Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden (1946) King of Sweden

royalcorrespondent.com http://royalcorrespondent.com/2013/02/15/an-interview-with-his-majesty-king-carl-xvi-gustaf-of-sweden/

“The softer you find your child is, the more you are to seek occasions, at fit times, thus to harden him. The great art in this is, to begin with what is but very little painful, and to proceed by insensible degrees, when you are playing, and in good humour with him, and speaking well of him: and when you have once got him to think himself made amends for his suffering by the praise is given him for his courage; when he can take pride in giving such marks of his manliness, and can prefer the reputation of being brave and stout, to the avoiding a little pain, or the shrinking under it; you need nor despair in time and by the assistance of his growing reason, to master his timorousness, and mend the weakness of his constitution.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 115
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Pain , Art , Courage , Thinking

“I shall never cease from the practice and teaching of philosophy, exhorting anyone whom I meet after my manner, and convincing him, saying: O my friend, why do you who are a citizen of the great and mighty and wise city of Athens, care so much about laying up the greatest amount of money and honor and reputation, and so little about wisdom and truth and the greatest improvement of the soul, which you never regard or heed at all? Are you not ashamed of this? And if the person with whom I am arguing says: Yes, but I do care: I do not depart or let him go at once; I interrogate and examine and cross-examine him, and if I think that he has no virtue, but only says that he has, I reproach him with overvaluing the greater, and undervaluing the less. …For this is the command of God, as I would have you know…”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

29d–30a
Plato, Apology

Wisdom , Money , God , Truth

“He got out of the van to see how many other suppliers were ahead of him and thus calculate, more or less accurately, how long he would have to wait. He was number thirteen, he counted again, no, there was no doubt about it. Although he was not a suspirations person, he knew about that number’s bad reputation, in any conversation about chance, fate or destiny, someone always chips in with some real-life experience of the negative, even fatal influence of the number thirteen. He tried to remember if he had ever been in this place in the queue before, but the long and the short of it was that either it had never happened or else he had simply forgotten. he got annoyed with himself, it was nonsense, utterly absurd to worry about something that has no real existence, yes, that was right, he had never thought of that before, numbers don’t really exist, things couldn’t care less what number we give them, its all the same to them if we say they’re number thirteen or number forty-four, we can conclude, at the very least, that they do not even notice the position they happen to end up in. people aren’t things, people always want to be in first place”

José Saramago book The Cave

Source: The Cave (2000), p. 9 (Vintage 2003)

Life , Fate , People , Chance

“The dialectics of history have already hooked him and will raise him up. He is needed by all of them; by the tired radicals, by the bureaucrats, by the Nepmen, the upstarts, by all the worms that are crawling out of the upturned soil of the manured revolution. He knows how to meet them on their own ground, he speaks their language and he knows how to lead them. He has the deserved reputation of an old revolutionist, which makes him invaluable to them as a blinder on the eyes of the country. He has will and daring. He will not hesitate to utilize them and to move them against the Party. Right now he is organising himself around the sneaks of the party, the artful dodgers.”

Leon Trotsky (1879–1940) Marxist revolutionary from Russia

Statement of 1924 on Joseph Stalin's growing powerbase, in Stalin, An Appraisal Of The Man And His Influence (1966); also in Stalin's Russia 1924-53 by Michael Lynch, p. 18

Art , History , Country

“There are people who strictly deprive themselves of each and every eatable, drinkable and smokable which has in any way acquired a shady reputation. They pay this price for health. And health is all they get for it. How strange it is. It is like paying out your whole fortune for a cow that has gone dry.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Source: Mark Twain's Autobiography (1924), p. 98

People , Health , Way

“The university, in a society ruled by public opinion, was to have been an island of intellectual freedom where all views were investigated without restriction. … But by consenting to play an active or “positive,” a participatory role in society, the university has become inundated and saturated with the backflow of society’s “problems.” Preoccupied with questions of Health, Sex, Race, War, academics make their reputations and their fortunes. … Any proposed reforms of liberal education which might bring the university into conflict with the whole of the U. S. A. are unthinkable. Increasingly, the people “inside” are identical in their appetites and motives with the people “outside” the university.”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

Source: Introduction to The Closing of the American Mind (1988), p. 18

War , People , Health , Education

“I wanted to damage every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it — it was your treasure of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children out of temptation, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in the fire.”

Mark Twain book The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg

"The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg", ch. III, in The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg and Other Stories and Essays (1900)

Children , People , Game , Nature

“Christianity is not satisfied with producing merely the specious guise of virtue. She requires the substantial reality, which may stand the scrutinizing eye of that Being “who searches the heart.” Meaning therefore that the Christian should live and breathe; in an atmosphere, as it were, of benevolence, she forbids whatever can tend to obstruct its diffusion or vitiate its purity. It is on this principle that Emulation is forbidden: for, besides that this passion almost insensibly degenerates into envy, and that it derives its origin chiefly from pride and a desire of self-exaltation; how can we easily love our neighbour as ourselves, if we consider him at the same time our rival, and are intent upon surpassing him in the pursuit of whatever is the subject of our competition?
Christianity, again, teaches us not to set our hearts on earthly possessions and earthly honours; and thereby provides for our really loving, or even cordially forgiving, those who have been more successful than ourselves in the attainment of them, or who have even designedly thwarted us in the pursuit. “Let the rich,” says the Apostle, “rejoice in that he is brought low.” How can he who means to attempt, in any degree, to obey this precept, be irreconcilably hostile towards any one who may have been instrumental in his depression?
Christianity also teaches us not to prize human estimation at a very high rate; and thereby provides for the practice of her injunction, to love from the heart those who, justly or unjustly, may have attacked our reputation, and wounded our character. She commands not the shew, but the reality of meekness and gentleness; and by thus taking away the aliment of anger and the fomenters of discord, she provides for the maintenance of peace, and the restoration of good temper among men, when it may have sustained a temporary interruption.
It is another capital excellence of Christianity, that she values moral attainments at a far higher rate than intellectual acquisitions, and proposes to conduct her followers to the heights of virtue rather than of knowledge. On the contrary, most of the false religious systems which have prevailed in the world, have proposed to reward the labour of their votary, by drawing aside the veil which concealed from the vulgar eye their hidden mysteries, and by introducing him to the knowledge of their deeper and more sacred doctrines.”

William Wilberforce (1759–1833) English politician

Source: Real Christianity (1797), p. 257.

Love , Men , Hostility , World

“Whoever shows both charm and pleasure in explaining to people things that they already know soon gets a reputation as an intelligent individual.”

Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer

Wer es versteht, den Leuten mit Anmut und Behagen Dinge auseinander zu setzen, die sie ohnehin wissen, der verschafft sich am geschwindesten den Ruf eines gescheiten Menschen.
Source: Aphorisms (1880/1893), p. 37.

People , Pleasure , Intelligence

“And if he be too forward to venture upon his own strength and skill, and perplexity and trouble of a misadventure now and then, that reaches not his innocence, his health, or reputation, may not be an ill way to teach him more caution.”

John Locke book Some Thoughts Concerning Education

Sec. 94
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)

Health , Way

“Fools admire everything in an author of reputation.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Citas, Candide (1759)

Fools

“His reputation will go on increasing because scarcely anyone reads him.”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

Sa réputation s’affermira toujours, parce qu’on ne le lit guère.
"Dante http://www.voltaire-integral.com/Html/18/dante.htm" (1765)
Citas, Dictionnaire philosophique (1764)

Reading

“In all these papers we see a love of honest work, an aversion to shams, a caution in the enunciation of conclusions, a distrust of rash generalizations and speculations based on uncertain premises. He was never anxious to add one more guess on doubtful matters in the hope of hitting the truth, or what might pass as such for a time, but was always ready to take infinite pains in the most careful testing of every theory. With these qualities was united a modesty which forbade the pushing of his own claims and desired no reputation except the unsought tribute of competent judges.”

Josiah Willard Gibbs (1839–1903) physicist

From Gibbs's obituary for Hubert Anson Newton (1897), in the Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy of Sciences http://www.nasonline.org/publications/biographical-memoirs/memoir-pdfs/hubert-newton.pdf.

Love , Pain , Truth , Hope

“War is a serious game in which a man risks his reputation, his troops, and his country. A sensible man will search himself to know whether or not he is fitted for the trade.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

War , Search , Game , Country

“You can now, if you choose, employ your present success to advantage, so as to keep what you have got and gain honour and reputation besides, and you can avoid the mistake of those who meet with an extraordinary piece of good fortune, and are led on by hope to grasp continually at something further, through having already succeeded without expecting it.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book IV, 4.17-[4]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book IV

Hope , Success

“I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth.”

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War

Book II, 2.35-[1]-[3]
History of the Peloponnesian War, Book II
Context: I could have wished that the reputations of many brave men were not to be imperilled in the mouth of a single individual, to stand or fall according as he spoke well or ill. For it is hard to speak properly upon a subject where it is even difficult to convince your hearers that you are speaking the truth. On the one hand, the friend who is familiar with every fact of the story may think that some point has not been set forth with that fullness which he wishes and knows it to deserve; on the other, he who is a stranger to the matter may be led by envy to suspect exaggeration if he hears anything above his own nature. For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.

Men , Truth

“It was the cause of America that made me an author. The force with which it struck my mind and the dangerous condition the country appeared to me in, by courting an impossible and an unnatural reconciliation with those who were determined to reduce her, instead of striking out into the only line that could cement and save her, A Declaration Of Independence, made it impossible for me, feeling as I did, to be silent: and if, in the course of more than seven years, I have rendered her any service, I have likewise added something to the reputation of literature, by freely and disinterestedly employing it in the great cause of mankind, and showing that there may be genius without prostitution. Independence always appeared to me practicable and probable, provided the sentiment of the country could be formed and held to the object: and there is no instance in the world, where a people so extended, and wedded to former habits of thinking, and under such a variety of circumstances, were so instantly and effectually pervaded, by a turn in politics, as in the case of independence; and who supported their opinion, undiminished, through such a succession of good and ill fortune, till they crowned it with success. But as the scenes of war are closed, and every man preparing for home and happier times, I therefore take my leave of the subject. I have most sincerely followed it from beginning to end, and through all its turns and windings: and whatever country I may hereafter be in, I shall always feel an honest pride at the part I have taken and acted, and a gratitude to nature and providence for putting it in my power to be of some use to mankind.”

Thomas Paine (1737–1809) English and American political activist

The Crisis No. XIII
1770s, The American Crisis (1776–1783)

Home , Time , Wedding , Country

“To bringing about the scientific renaissance (In India) Sir Jagadish had influentially contributed. Indians are justly proud of the possession of a few men who have gained world-wide reputation in their particular fields of activity, and this pride reacts strongly on public opinion. At the Research Institute a group Indian post-graduate students devote their lives to research. The published Transactions of the Institute show that under the leadership of this eminent Bengali, Indian research is making substantial contribution to scientific knowledge, that in this field there is no fundamental difference between the Western and the Eastern mind, as was assumed when Sir Jagadish began his work.”

Jagadish Chandra Bose (1858–1937) Bengali polymath, physicist, biologist, botanist and archaeologist

By Times after the inauguration of the his research institute on 23rd November 1917.
Acharya Jagadish Chandra Bose in Vijayaprasara

World , Making love , Knowledge , Men

“Spotlight your Strengths…not your Weaknesses.

Focus on your Character…not your Reputation.

Count your Blessings…not your Misfortunes.”

Stephie Pahlavi Zan

“I know I got a bad reputation
'Walk around, always mad' reputation
'Leave a pretty girl sad' reputation
Start a Fight Club, Brad reputation Close your eyes and let the word paint a thousand pictures
One good girl is worth a thousand bitches
Bound.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Bound 2
Lyrics, Yeezus (2013)

Painting , Girl , Bitch , Sadness

“Guard your honor. Let your reputation fall where it will. And outlive the bastards.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

“With enough courage, you can do without a reputation.”

Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist

Courageous , Courage

“I think you'll have to marry me, Miss Fielding."

"To save your reputation?"

Derek grinned, bending to kiss the flash of pale throat revealed by the robe. "Someone has to make a respectable man of me.”

Lisa Kleypas book Dreaming of You

Source: Dreaming of You

Kiss , Thinking

“There is no more hollow feeling than to stand with your honor shattered at your feet while soaring public reputation wraps you in rewards. That's soul-destroying. The other way around is merely very, very irritating.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

Way , Feeling , Soul

“Self-esteem is the reputation we acquire with ourselves.”

Nathaniel Branden (1930–2014) Canadian–American psychotherapist and writer

Source: Six Pillars of Self-Esteem

“Be still:
There is no longer any need of comment.
It was a lucky wind
That blew away his halo with his cares,
A lucky sea that drowned his reputation.”

Thomas Merton (1915–1968) Priest and author

Sea

“The mighty lion toys with the mouse that crosses his path—any other reaction would mar his fearsome reputation.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

“Your reputation is in the hands of others. That's what the reputation is. You can't control that. The only thing you can control is your character.”

Wayne W. Dyer (1940–2015) American writer

“Your reputation is what you're perceived to be,
Your character is what you really are”

John Wooden (1910–2010) American basketball coach

“You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.”

Henry Ford (1863–1947) American industrialist

As quoted in International Encyclopedia of Prose and Poetical Quotations (1951) by William S. Walsh
Attributed from posthumous publications
Variant: You can't learn in school what the world is going to do next year.

“Few people think more than two or three times a year; I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week.”

George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish playwright

People , Thinking , Time

“Small mistakes tend to lead to large ones. Ours is a lifetime appoinment, and all you have is your reputation. Once it's gone, it doesn't comeback.”

David Baldacci book The Simple Truth

Source: The Simple Truth

“By this curious turn of disposition I have gained the reputation of deliberate heartlessness; how undeserved, I alone can appreciate.”

Emily Brontë book Wuthering Heights

Source: Wuthering Heights

“Reputation is what other people know about you. Honor is what you know about yourself.”

Lois McMaster Bujold A Civil Campaign

Source: Vorkosigan Saga, A Civil Campaign (1999)

People

“I've developed a great reputation for wisdom by ordering more books than I ever had time to read, and reading more books, by far, than I learned anything useful from, except, of course, that some very tedious gentlemen have written books.”

Marilynne Robinson Gilead

Source: Gilead

Wisdom , Books , Learning , Time

“Your reputation invites scandal. Your temperament assures it.”

Carolyn Jewel

Scandal

“Many a man's reputation would not know his character if they met on the street.”

Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915) American writer, publisher, artist, and philosopher fue el escritor del jarron azul

“Say you’ll marry me when I come back or, before God, I won’t go. I’ll stay around here and play a guitar under your window every night and sing at the top of my voice and compromise you, so you’ll have to marry me to save your reputation.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

God , Singing , Night

“It pays to be obvious, especially if you have a reputation for subtlety.”

Isaac Asimov book Foundation

Part III, The Mayors, section 2
Source: The Foundation series (1951–1993), Foundation (1951)

“Even mocking people helped their face stats. In the reputation economy, the only real way to hurt anyone was to ignore them completely. And it was pretty hard to ignore someone who made your blood boil.”

Scott Westerfeld book Extras

Source: Extras

People , Way , Help , Hurt

“It's hard to maintain a reputation for being grim and mysterious when you're accompanied by a brightly clad young thing, skipping merrily along at your side, holding your hand, and smiling sweetly on one and all.”

Simon R. Green (1955) British writer

Source: The Unnatural Inquirer

Smile

“Sometimes, he thought wryly, a reputation for being right all the time could be a heavy burden.”

John Flanagan (1873–1938) Irish-American hammer thrower

Source: The Ruins of Gorlan

Time

“It takes a lifetime to build a good reputation, but you can lose it in a minute.”

Will Rogers (1879–1935) American humorist and entertainer

“Life is simple," I said. "Ale, women, sword, and reputation. Nothing else matters.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Pale Horseman

Source: The Pale Horseman

Life , Women

“Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation, for your character is what you are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

Dale Carnegie (1888–1955) American writer and lecturer

Deep , Wise , Life , Powerful

“Never support two weaknesses at the same time. It's your combination sinners — your lecherous liars and your miserly drunkards — who dishonor the vices and bring them into bad repute.”

Thornton Wilder The Matchmaker

Malachi, in Act 3
The Matchmaker (1954)

Support , Time

“Do not leave your reputation to chance or gossip; it is your life's artwork, and you must craft it, hone it, and display it with the care of an artist.”

Robert Greene book The 48 Laws of Power

Source: The 48 Laws of Power

Life , Chance

“The preachers tell us that pride is a great sin, but the preachers are wrong. Pride makes a man, it drives him, it is the shield wall around his reputation… Men die, they said, but reputation does not die.”

Bernard Cornwell book The Last Kingdom

Source: The Last Kingdom

Men

“Her reputation for reading a great deal hung about her like the cloudy envelope of a goddess in an epic.”

Henry James book The Portrait of a Lady

Source: The Portrait of a Lady

Reading

“The most important thing for a young man is to establish a credit — a reputation, character.”

John D. Rockefeller (1839–1937) American business magnate and philanthropist

The Men Who Are Making America (1918) by Bertie Charles Forbes

For Men

“I think my reputation is something that I'll probably try to spend the rest of my life living it down and it probably won't work.”

Russell Crowe (1964) New Zealand-born Australian actor, film producer and musician

60 Minutes interview (2006)

Life , Thinking

“The plain fact is that many of the reputations which today occupy the poetic limelight are such as would crumble immediately if poetry such as Empson's, with its passion, logic, and formal beauty, were to become widely known.”

William Empson (1906–1984) English literary critic and poet

John Wain "Ambiguous Gifts", in The Penguin New Writing no. 40 (1950); cited from John Lehmann and Roy Fuller (eds.) The Penguin New Writing 1940-1950: An Anthology (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1985) p. 492.
Criticism

Beauty , Passion

“America's got a much stronger tradition of free speech and freedom of the press. In Europe, it's much more nuanced and they put a lot of meaning on the rights of your reputation.”

Noam Cohen (1999) American journalist

Interviewed live on MSNBC program Morning Joe; quoted in — MSNBC, July 7, 2014, Google begins cleaning up online reputations, Morning Joe, Mika, Brzezinski, w:Mika Brzezinski, October 29, 2014, https://web.archive.org/web/20141029161113/http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/google-begins-cleaning-up-online-reputations-298468419646, October 29, 2014 http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/google-begins-cleaning-up-online-reputations-298468419646,

Freedom

“I do not regard the late Carl Sagan as any kind of authority. On the contrary, as this book will show, I regard him in many ways as a dubious publicity seeker and careerist, more concerned to maintain his reputation as the brilliant and sceptical representative of hard-headed science than to look squarely and honestly at the facts. In short, a bit of a crook.”

Colin Wilson (1931–2013) author

Source: Alien Dawn (1998), pp. xix-xx

Books , Way , Science

“In its widest possible sense, however, a man's Self is the sum total of all that he can call his, not only his body and his psychic powers, but his clothes and his house, his wife and children, his ancestors and friends, his reputation and works, his lands and horses, and yacht and bank-account. All these things give him the same emotions. If they wax and prosper, he feels triumphant; if they dwindle and die away, he feels cast down.”

William James (1842–1910) American philosopher, psychologist, and pragmatist

Source: 1890s, The Principles of Psychology (1890), Ch. 10

Children , Feeling , Sense , Horse

“The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen. Byron said that he had been raped oftener than anyone since the Trojan War.”

André Maurois (1885–1967) French writer

Un Art de Vivre (The Art of Living) (1939), The Art of Loving

War , Lovers , Victory , Madness

“Despite his reputation as one of America's foremost "serious" filmmakers, Oliver Stone's name under the "director" caption does not guarantee a good movie. I learned that lesson while enduring the seemingly-endless tedium of The Doors, and was reminded of it during some of the long, drawn-out portions of JFK. However, nothing that Stone has directed — or misdirected — prepared me for the grotesque mess that is Natural Born Killers.”

James Berardinelli (1967) American film critic

Review http://www.reelviews.net/php_review_template.php?identifier=1509 of Natural Born Killers (1994).
One-and-a-half star reviews

Nature , Learning

“The person who associates with scholars, will have his reputation exalted.”

Ja'far al-Sadiq (702–765) Muslim religious person

Majlisi, Bihārul Anwār, vol.78, p. 202
Regarding Knowledge & Wisdom, General

Personality

“When one deals with the Murthe, the unthinkable becomes the ordinary, and Zanzel's repute carries no more weight than last year's mouse-dropping - if that much.”

Jack Vance (1916–2013) American mystery and speculative fiction writer

"The Murthe", chapter 2
Quotations and text from the Dying Earth novels, Rhialto the Marvellous (1984)

“My teaming up with Amitabh Bachchan in Do Anjan earned me fame as an intense actress. Then it was Hrishikesh Mukherjee’s Khubsoorat in 1978 that established me as an actress of repute.”

Rekha (1954) Indian film actress

The diva rules

“I thank your Excellency for your generous and obliging offer. Most certain, my inclination leads me to a resignation. My reputation I value more than any advantages of gain; and I consider it in great danger. I wrote your Excellency lengthy upon this subject yesterday, and therefore shall say but little upon it to-day. I intend to write to Congress to day, upon the subject of my apprehensions and determination; and, if they do not give me those kinds of assurances, which are necessary to guard my reputation from malice and detraction. I shall insist upon leaving the business. The politics of Congress are really alarming, and the state of the finances astonishing; where they will end, time only can unfold.”

Nathanael Greene (1742–1786) American general in the American Revolutionary War

Letter to George Washington (26 April 1779)

Business , Time

“There remains the problem of Goebbels' reputation. He wore the title of Big Liar (bestowed by Anglo-Saxon propaganda) and yet he never stopped battling for propaganda to be as accurate as possible. He preferred being cynical and brutal to being caught in a lie. He used to say: "Everybody must know what the situation is." He was always the first to announce disastrous events or difficult situations, without hiding anything. The result was a general belief between 1939 and 1942 that German communiqués not only were more concise, clearer and less cluttered, but were more truthful than Allied communiqués (American and neutral opinion) — and, furthermore, that the Germans published all the news two or three days before the Allies. All this is so true that pinning the title of Big Liar on Goebbels must be considered quite a propaganda success.”

Jacques Ellul (1912–1994) French sociologist, technology critic, and Christian anarchist

"The Characteristics of Propaganda" in Readings in Propaganda and Persuasion : New and Classic Essays (2006) edited by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, p. 48, note 47

Truth , Lie , Problem , Success

“Whoever of ye Whigs thinks I am to be Hecktor'd or frighted into a Complyance tho I am a woman, are mightely mistaken in me. I thank God I have a Soul above that, & am too much conserned for my reputation to do any thing to forfeit it.”

Anne of Great Britain (1665–1714) queen of England, queen of Scotland and queen of Ireland (1702–07); queen of Great Britain (1707–14)

Letter to Lord Godolphin (12 September 1707), from Edward Gregg, Queen Anne (Yale University Press, 2001), p. 250.

God , Soul , Thinking