Skip to main content

Wit & Attitude Quote by Dusty Springfield

"It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last"

About this Quote

Popularity is a sugar high, and Dusty Springfield delivers that truth with the calm authority of someone who’s tasted it onstage and then watched it evaporate. “Marvellous” isn’t a throwaway adjective; it’s the sound of a performer refusing to sneer at the crowd’s love. She grants the thrill its full glamour. Then she pivots: “foolish” lands like a slap of realism, not bitterness. The sentence is built like a trapdoor - gratitude on top, gravity underneath.

The intent is defensive and liberating at once. By separating pleasure from expectation, Springfield sketches a survival strategy for fame: accept the joy, don’t build your identity on it. The subtext is that popularity is less a verdict on talent than a weather system of timing, taste, and industry machinery. To “think it will last” isn’t just naive; it’s a category error, confusing market heat for permanence.

Context matters here because Springfield’s career moved through sharp peaks and reinventions, in an era when pop stardom was both newly mass-mediated and brutally disposable. The 1960s and 70s music business loved a narrative until it got bored, and it got bored quickly - especially with women expected to stay eternally fresh, pliable, and grateful. Her line sidesteps the usual celebrity script (either entitlement or false humility) and offers something rarer: mature ambivalence. Enjoy the spotlight. Keep a self outside it. That’s not cynicism; it’s craft.

Quote Details

TopicWisdom
SourceHelp us find the source
Cite

Citation Formats

APA Style (7th ed.)
Springfield, Dusty. (2026, January 17). It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-marvellous-to-be-popular-but-foolish-to-think-76893/

Chicago Style
Springfield, Dusty. "It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-marvellous-to-be-popular-but-foolish-to-think-76893/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"It's marvellous to be popular, but foolish to think it will last." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/its-marvellous-to-be-popular-but-foolish-to-think-76893/. Accessed 22 Feb. 2026.

More Quotes by Dusty Add to List
Popularity Is Temporary - Dusty Springfield Quote
Click to enlarge Portrait | Landscape

About the Author

United Kingdom Flag

Dusty Springfield (April 16, 1939 - March 2, 1999) was a Musician from United Kingdom.

13 more quotes available

View Profile

Similar Quotes

Oscar Wilde, Dramatist
Oscar Wilde