Selected reputation quotes

1. Public service is my motto.

2. Our father the novelist; my husband the poet. He belongs to the ages - just don't catch him at breakfast. Artists, celebrated for their humanity, they turn out to be scarcely human at all.

3. Too many of us look upon Americans as dollar chasers. This is a cruel libel, even if it is reiterated thoughtlessly by the Americans themselves.

4. Don't pay any attention to what they write about you. Just measure it in inches.

5. When young Mark Robarts was leaving college, his father might well declare that all men began to say all good things to him, and to extol his fortune in that he had a son blessed with so excellent a disposition.

6. Liars when they speak the truth are not believed.

7. If I give you a good wine, you will see how it tastes and after you ask where it comes from.

8. Everybody likes a kidder, but nobody lends him money.

9. Please don't believe everything you hear about me, regardless of how true it may be.

10. Calumnies are answered best with silence.

11. Thy praise or dispraise is to me alike; One doth not stroke me, nor the other strike.

12. It is as great a spite to be praised in the wrong place, and by a wrong person, as can be done to a noble nature.

13. In this business, until you're known as a monster you're not a star.

14. I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

15. I'm not afraid of Spassky. The world knows I'm the best. You don't need a match to prove it.

16. People have been playing against me below their strength for fifteen years.

17. Genius. It's a word. What does it really mean? If I win I'm a genius. If I don't, I'm not.

18. I think I'm still clean living. That's - I mean I don't go home and have orgies or anything like that. I'm still the same person I've always been.

19. I have the consolation of leaving your kingdom in the highest degree of glory and of reputation.

20. Keep up appearances whatever you do.

21. Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.

22. I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements.

23. It is with literature as with law or empire - an established name is an estate in tenure, or a throne in possession.

24. Never explain - your friends do not need it and your enemies will not believe you anyway.

25. Do not adjust your sandals while passing through a melon-field, nor yet arrange your hat beneath an orange-tree.

26. A beaten general is disgraced forever.

27. The highest form of vanity is love of fame.

28. Nothing would have been changed for the German people, but my name would have gone down in history as that of the greatest traitor.

29. The creator of the new composition in the arts is an outlaw until he is a classic.

30. Of course in Miami, not denouncing Fidel Castro at every turn is almost as bad as saying Gloria Estefan can't sing.

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

32. When I see an Alfa Romeo go by, I tip my hat.

33. My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied.

34. Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.

35. Charity may cover a multitude of sins, but success transmutes them into virtues.

36. I've been too many places. I'm like the bad penny.

37. Strangers who have seen Shaw face to face are wont to report their surprise at his gentleness and consideration, his willingness to listen and his complete lack of pose.

38. If I don't practice one day, I know it; two days, the critics know it; three days, the public knows it.

39. The public seldom forgive twice.

40. Biography is one of the new terrors of death.

41. Gossip is mischievous, light and easy to raise, but grievous to bear and hard to get rid of. No gossip ever dies away entirely, if many people voice it: it too is a kind of divinity.

42. Of which all Europe rings from side to side.

43. The day has clearly gone forever of societies small enough for their members to have personal acquaintance with one another, and to find their station through the appraisal of those who have first hand knowledge of them. Publicity is an evil substitute and the art of publicity is a black art; but it has come to stay, every year adds to its potency and to the finality of its judgments. The hand that rules the press, the radio, the screen and the far-spread magazine, rules the country whether we like it or not, we must learn to accept it.

44. If there's a hole in a' your coats, I rede you tent it; A chield's aman you takin' notes, And faith he'll prent it.

45. I am like a Rolls Royce which can run without an engine, just on reputation.

46. 'Fame is only good for one thing-they will cash your check in a small town.'

47. You can fool some people sometimes, but you can't fool all the people all the time. ** Usually attributed to Abraham Lincoln or P. T. Barnum

48. Asking a man if he could be trusted was like asking an unwed girl if she was a virgin. The question mattered, but the asking of it was a gross insult

49. What people think about you is not supposed to matter much, so long as you yourself know where the truth lies; but I have found out, as have others who move in and out of newspaper headlines, that on occasion it can matter a good deal. For once you enter the worl

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

51. That chastity of honour which felt a stain like a wound.

52. I don't care what they say about me, just make sure they spell my name right!

53. Je ne dois qu'a moi seul toute ma renommee.

54. The two biggest myths about me are that I'm an intellectual, because I wear these glasses, and that I'm an artist because my films lose money. Those two myths have been prevalent for many years.

55. Now it so happens in the world that opposed to characters of such persons as he there are characters like mine, for instance. I care as little for the world's opinion as that man cared for what was right. To appear right was enough for him; what I think the most important is not to deceive or desert a woman.

56. Much Ado About Nothing

57. It is like the thirteenth stroke of a crazy clock, which not only is itself discredited but casts a shade of doubt over all previous assertions.

58. Charm'd with the foolish whistling of a name.

59. This laurel greener from the brows Of him that uttered nothing base.

60. 'Do men love thee? Art thou so bound To men, that how thy name may sound Will vex thee lying underground? 'The memory of the wither'd leaf In endless time is scarce more brief Than of the garner'd Autumn-sheaf.

61. Everybody always knows where they stand with you, dont they?

62. I used to be such a sweet, sweet thing 'Til they got a hold of me. I opened doors for little old ladies, I helped the blind to see. I got no friends 'cause they read the papers. They can't be seen with me and I'm gettin' real shot down And I'm feeling mean. No more Mister Nice Guy, No more Mister Clean, No more Mister Nice Guy, They say he's sick, he's obscene.

63. It was admitted by all her friends, and also by her enemies- who were in truth the more numerous and active body of the two- that Lizzie Greystock had done very well with herself.

64. The greatest playwright of the 20th century.

65. It's a real waste. He still had a lot of racing and wins left in him. He was a good person. I can tell you that firsthand. Last year (1993), when I had my problems, he was one of the main people there supporting me. He was probabily the greatest driver of all time. This was not a driver error. There was no weakness in his driving.

66. Some twenty years ago I stopped talking about the Babe for the simple reason that I realized that those who had never seen him didn't believe me.

67. La galanteria y la honra tienen esta ventaja, que se quedan: aquella en quien la usa, esta en quien la haze.

68. La quexa siempre trae descredito. Mas sirve de exemplar de atrevimiento a la passion que de consuelo a la compassion. Abre el passo a quien la oye para lo mismo, y es la noticia del agravio del primero disculpa del segundo. Dan pie algunos con sus quexas de las ofensiones passadas a las venideras.

69. 'It's all smokes and daggers'( commenting on the media's apparent conspiracy to discredit him)

70. Spinoza (1634-77) is the noblest and most lovable of the great philosophers. Intellectually, some have surpassed him, but ethically he is supreme. As a natural consequence, he was considered, during his lifetime and for a century after his death, a man of appalling wickedness.

71. They want to utterly destroy my reputation for all time. Jews are vicious rats.

72. They like to write only bad things about me.

73. I wouldn't have put a dime on anyone to beat Bruce Lee in a real confrontation. Bruce Lee was the best street fighter I ever saw, even to this very day, and not just pound for pound - but against anyone in a real fight.

74. The label of liberalism is hardly a sentence to public igominy: otherwise Bruce Springsteen would still be rehabilitating used Cadillacs in Asbury Park and Jane Fonda, for all we know, would be just another overweight housewife.

75. There are plenty of Republican senators now who know what happened to Trent Lott - how can they not? They have street smarts. They're aware that he was nailed because people happened to record something that was at the practical funeral of a centenarian.

76. Reputation: 'Unfortunately, your reputation often rests not on your ability to do what you say, but rather on your ability to do what people expect.'

77. Anger: 'Keep your anger in check. Anger is like a fire's ember; the hotter it burns the quicker it consumes itself and those things around it. Unchecked, anger often turns into an explosion of cruelty that can forever destroy a reputation and wound the tenderness of those whom we care about.'

78. Prudence: 'Speak rarely, but then speak carefully. Speak with great calculation and discretion before your rivals and with great nobility of manner before friends. The opportunity to make your thoughts known arise with every social gathering, but the ability to conceal them once liberated never comes.'

79. I just want that one day, when I retire, that people still remember me like they remember Buster. I really want someone to respect me the way they respect Buster.

80. 'They called her the diva.' (Matt Cassella, about Christina's mouseketers mates)

81. Whatever else he was during his life, he was never dull, and the world forgives almost anything but stupidity.

82. In the evening, as I was going to bed, I saw him come into my room. 'I would not have come,' he told me, 'and interrupt your rest unless I believed that someone who could travel nine hundred leagues in half a day could have done so without getting tired. You don't know of the fine argument I've been having about you with our Jesuit priests?' he added. 'They insist you are a magician. The best you can hope for from them is to pass only for an impostor.'

83. The King's daughter didn't talk to me any more about military matters at the time, because she was afraid of being discovered alone with me early in the morning. The reason was not that immodesty is a crime in that country. On the contrary, any man - except for convicted felons - can ask what he wants of any woman, and any woman can bring suit against a man who refuses her. But the King's daughter didn't dare come to see me publicly because she said the priests had preached at the last sacrifice that women were mainly the ones who were saying I was a man. The priests claimed that women were disguising their execrable desire to mingle with animals and shamelessly commit sins against nature with me. That was why I went a long time without seeing her or any other female.

84. I suspect that the playwright Edmond Rostand accurately portrays his ability as a swordsman; Cyrano was something of a legend in his own time.

85. I hope your opinion of me doesn't change when those crotch shots do finally hit Perez's site.

86. This is the first time in ages that David Mellor has done the decent thing.

87. 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.

88. To do his duty somehow, always to speak well of the Prior, and let the world go its own way.

89. All Paris knew him as a fighter, a recluse, guarding his privacy with cruel, crushing words. The habitues of the Paris boulevards defended themselves against his scorn by accusing him of insincerity. 'Degas,' they said, 'would like to see his reflection in a boulevard window in order to give himself the satisfaction of breaking the plate-glass with his cane.'

90. I was just an enthusiastic mountaineer of modest abilities who was willing to work quite hard and had the necessary imagination and determination. I was just an average bloke; it was the media that transformed me into a heroic figure. And try as I did, there was no way to destroy my heroic image. But as I learned through the years, as long as you didn't believe all that rubbish about yourself, you wouldn't come to much harm.

91. One of those rare legendary figures who was as good as his myth.

92. I wanted to say to Elvis Presley and the country that this is a real decent, fine boy.

93. When I saw the newspaper headline 'Gas Chamber Expert Captured' and an American lieutenant explained it to me, I was pale in amazement. How can they say such things about me? I told you I was only in charge of the Intelligence Service from 1943 on. The British even admitted that they tried to assassinate me because of that, not because of having anything to do with atrocities, you can be sure of that.

94. I have talked to you in the past but we have always exchanged pleasantries. And it has always been assumed that I am Kaltenbrunner, the big bad man next to Himmler and the successor of Himmler. But I think you can see by this time, after having treated my brain hemorrhages, both in the hospital and here in my cell, that I am not the disagreeable, uncouth fellow the public probably thinks because of all the atrocities committed under Himmler's rule, and of which I am totally innocent.

95. I am thought of as another Himmler. (Smiles.) I'm not. The papers make me out as a criminal. I never killed anyone.

96. He could whip his weight in wildcats.

97. Curiously enough he found in senior year that he had acquired a position in his class. He learned that he was looked upon as a rather romantic figure, a scholar, a recluse, a tower of erudition. This amused him but secretly pleased him-he began going out, at first a little and then a great deal.

98. He was one of those men who comes in a door and make any woman with them look guilty.

99. You can take off your hats now, gentlemen, and I think perhaps you had better. This is not a legend, this is a reputation - and seen in perspective, it may well be one of the most secure reputations of our time.

100. Audacter calumniare, semper aliquid haeret.