And every warrior that is rapt with love Of fame, of valour, and of victory, Must needs have beauty beat on his conceits: I thus conceiving and subduing both, That which hath stopped the tempest of the gods, Even from the fiery-spangled veil of heaven, To feel the lovely warmth of shepherds'flames, And march in cottages of strowe'  d weeds, Shall give the world to note, for all my birth, That virtue solely is the sum of glory, And fashions men with true nobility.

-Marlowe, Christopher
  Tamburlaine the Great (published1590), pt.1, act 5, sc.1.

Alas! What boots it with uncessant care To tend the homely slighted Shepherd's trade, And strictly meditate the thankless muse; Were it not better done as others use, To sport with Amaryllis in the shade, Or with the tangles of Neaera's hair? Fame is the spur that the clear spirit doth raise (That last infirmity of noble mind) To scorn delights, and live laborious days; But the fair guerdon when we hope to find, And think to burst out into sudden blaze, Comes the blind Fury with th'abhorred shears, And slits the thin-spun life.

-Milton,John
  Lycidas, l.64^76.

Fame is no plant that grows on mortal soil.

-Milton,John
  Lycidas, l.78.

There is a place (If ancient and prophetic fame in heav'n Err not) another world, the happy seat Of some new race called Man.

-Milton,John
  Beelzebub. Paradise Lost (published1667), bk.2, l.345^8.

La gloire et le repos sont choses qui ne peuvent loger en mesme giste. Fame and tranquillity are two things that can't live under the same roof.

-Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de
 Essais, bk.1, ch.39 (translated by Charles Cotton).

I do not write for money or fame† One writes because one has a burning desire to objectify what it is indispensible to one's happiness to express.

-Moore, Marianne Craig
  Ewing Lecture, University of California, 3 Oct.

Immortal Spenser, no frailty hath thy fame but the imputation of this idiot's friendship!

-Nashe,Thomas
  Strange News of the Intercepting Certain Letters.

If parts allure thee, think how Bacon shined, The wisest, brightest, meanest of mankind: Or ravished with the whistling of a name, See Cromwell, damned to everlasting fame!

-Pope, Alexander
  An Essay on Man, epistle 4, l.281^4.

Why stir the wasps that rim Fame's luscious pot? Love costs us nothing, satire costs a lot!

-Rickword, Edgell
  'The Contemporary Muse'.

Long life to thy fame and peace to thy soul, Rob Burns! When I want to express a sentiment which I feel strongly, I find the phrase in Shakespeareöor thee. The blockheads talk of my being like Shakespeareönot fit to tie his brogues.

-Scott, Sir Walter
  Journal,11 Dec.

Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame; Who seek, who hope, who love, who live, but thee: Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history; If thou praise not, all other praise is shame.

-Shute, Nevil originally Nevil Shute Norway
Astrophel and Stella, sonnet 90.

   One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washe'  d it away; Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide, and made my pains his prey. 'Vain man,'said she,'that doest in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalise, For I my self shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipe'  d out likewise.' 'Not so,'quod I,'let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame: My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name. Where when as death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.'

-Spenser, Edmund
  Amoretti, sonnet 75.

   Dan Chaucer, well of English undefiled, On Fame's eternal beadroll worthy to be filed.

-Spenser, Edmund
  The Faerie Queen, bk.4, canto 2, stanza 32.

En cherchant la gloire, j'ai toujours espe¤  re¤   qu'elle me ferait aimer. I have pursued fame always in the hope of winning her love.

-Stae«  l, Germaine Necker, Baronne de
  Corinne ou de l'Italie.

The general who advances without coveting fame and retreats without fearing disgrace, whose only thought is to protect the countryand do good service to his sovereign, is the jewel of the kingdom.

-SunTzu
c.500^320   BC  TheArt ofWar, ch.10,'Terrain', section 24 (translated byJames Clavell,1981).

  Man dreams of fame while woman wakes to love.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'Merlin andVivien', l.458.

With this for motto,'Rather use than fame'.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'Merlin andVivien', l.478.

To love one maiden only, cleave to her, And worship her by years of noble deeds, Until they won her; for indeed I knew Of no more subtle master under heaven Than is the maiden passion for a maid, Not only to keep down the base in man, But teach high thought, and aimable words And courtliness, and the desire of fame, And love of truth, and all that makes man.

-Tennyson
  Idylls of the King,'Guinevere', l.472^80.

I charge thee, sir, not to talk of high honours, A single general achieves fame on the rotting bones of ten thousand.

-Ts'ao Sung
c.879  'Written in the year Chi hai (879)', collected in A Book of ChineseVerse (translated by N L Smith and R H Kotewall).