Famous Quotes: Timeless Wisdom from Renowned Personalities

"Martyrdom: The only way a man can become famous without ability"

George Bernard Shaw, Dramatist

"How many famous and high-spirited heroes have lived a day too long?"

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Philosopher

"The thing about being famous is, it's weird. The only people who get how weird it is are other famous people"

Margot Kidder, Actress

"Whereas you have someone like Houdini, who works really, really hard to get really, really famous, and then has actual intellectual ideas that he puts into the culture that stay there"

Penn Jillette, Entertainer

"So I'm a young boy in the 1940s growing up, seeing Ralph Bunche on a regular basis, seeing Duke Ellington on a regular basis. We know that these people are famous. They're living in the same community as we live in. They go to the same stores and shops"

Ed Smith

"I think in the end, when you're famous, people like to narrow you down to a few personality traits. I think I've just become this ambitious, say-whatever's-on-her-mind, intimidating person. And that's part of my personality, but it's certainly not anywhere near the whole thing"

Madonna Ciccone, Entertainer

"I never wanted to do biography just to tell the life of a famous man. I always wanted to use the life of a man to examine political power, because democracy shapes our lives"

Robert Caro, Writer

"One of the pleasant duties of America's most famous announcers during the relatively short swing era of the big bands was to host late-night remotes from some of the most famous ballrooms throughout the country"

Nick Clooney, Politician

"I served the famous professors and scholars, and eventually they learned that the Reverend Moon is superior to them. Even Nobel laureate academics who thought they were at the center of knowledge are as nothing in front of me"

Sun Myung Moon, Clergyman

"Italian girls are famous for being snobby and expecting men to make the first move. In America, if I don't make eye contact, the guys won't come over and talk. American girls just go for it. You men are spoiled"

Silvia Colloca, Actress

"On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships"

Eberhard Weber, Musician

"Olympic Gold changed me and my life dramatically. I became a celebrity overnight and people see me as a famous skater, not a real person"

Oksana Baiul, Athlete

"Slowly but surely, we are acquiring that famous culture of democracy, which is our objective"

Paul Biya, Statesman

"It struck me that working digitally with a small crew, I could lay out a general plan for Famous and hope for mistakes which would create something more than satire and something less than truthful reality"

Griffin Dunne, Actor

"Among famous traitors of history one might mention the weather"

Ilka Chase, Actress

"When you're famous, you don't get to meet people because they want you to like them when the present themselves to you, and you don't see the real people"

Cass Elliot, Musician

"Sonny and another Hells Angel who was at the meeting thought they were beyond a little patch so they headed down to a local tattoo shop in Oakland and were the first to get the famous One Percent tattoos"

Chuck Zito, Celebrity

"Quentin is very organic; there was no way that he was going to put someone else's hand in there and anyway, my hands are kind of famous. It seemed right"

David Carradine, Actor

"To be famous, in fact, one has only to kill one's landlady"

Albert Camus, Philosopher

"A very quiet and tasteful way to be famous is to have a famous relative. Then you can not only be nothing, you can do nothing too"

P. J. O'Rourke, Journalist

"There are high spots in all of our lives and most of them have come about through encouragement from someone else. I don't care how great, how famous or successful a man or woman may be, each hungers for applause"

George Matthew Adams, Philosopher

"Forget about being world famous, it's hard enough just getting the automatic doors at the supermarket to acknowledge our existence"

Doug Coupland, Author

"I was obsessed with being rich and famous"

Paul Lynde, Comedian

"Martyrdom is the only way a man can become famous without ability"

Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher

"I have no use for people who throw their weight around as celebrities, or for those who fawn over you just because you are famous"

Walt Disney, Cartoonist

"I could have been a dental hygienist with nothing bad ever appearing in print about me, but that's not how I've chosen to lead my life. I knew that you put yourself under a microscope the more famous you become"

Julia Roberts, Actress

"If you think Abraham Lincoln became famous for inventing the town car, it is time to spend a few hours on history"

Bo Bennett, Businessman

"After a fellow gets famous it doesn't take long for someone to bob up that used to sit by him in school"

Kin Hubbard, Journalist

"I was famous overnight. I went from nowhere to being really big"

Sting, Musician

"I'm English. Our dentistry is not world famous"

Christian Bale, Actor

"The seven wise men of Greece, so famous for their wisdom all the world over, acquired all that fame, each of them, by a single sentence consisting of two or three words"

Robert South, Clergyman

"Andy Warhol made fame more famous"

Fran Lebowitz, Journalist

"The love of the famous, like all strong passions, is quite abstract. Its intensity can be measured mathematically, and it is independent of persons"

Susan Sontag, Author

"Comedy has to be done en clair. You can't blunt the edge of wit or the point of satire with obscurity. Try to imagine a famous witty saying that is not immediately clear"

James Thurber, Comedian

"The cool thing about being famous is traveling. I have always wanted to travel across seas, like to Canada and stuff"

Britney Spears, Musician

"I was never very interested in boys - and there were plenty of them - vying with one another to see how many famous women they would get into the hay"

Bette Davis, Actress

"There were a few years there when I was just so enamored with the idea of living some sort of famous person's lifestyle that really isn't suited to me"

Daniel Radcliffe, Actor

"At first, I thoroughly enjoyed being famous"

Phil Donahue, Entertainer

"I think being famous is more of a hindrance, a constraint, than just letting yourself be free"

Martin Yan, Celebrity

"The stones themselves are thick with history, and those cats that dash through the alleyways must surely be the ghosts of the famous dead in feline disguise"

Erica Jong, Novelist

Page 1 of 9