Infamy Quotes

• The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who, in time of great moral crisis, maintain their neutrality.
  [This miserable mode
  Maintain the melancholy souls of those
  Who lived withouten infamy or praise.]

  Dante Alighieri

  Soul, Neutrality, Moral

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• The technique of infamy is to start two lies at once and get people arguing heatedly over which is the truth.

  Ezra Pound

  Lying, Two, People

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• In a country that doesn't discriminate between fame and infamy, the latter presents itself as plainly more achievable.

  Lionel Shriver

  Country, Fame, Latter

  Lionel Shriver (2011). “We Need to Talk about Kevin”, p.168, Counterpoint Press

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• This sorrow weighs upon the melancholy souls of those who lived without infamy or praise.

  Dante Alighieri

  Life, Soul, Sorrow

  "Inferno", III. 3 in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations" by Jehiel Keeler Hoyt, (pp. 440-455), 1922.

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• Fame or infamy, either one is preferable to being forgotten when you have passed from this realm.

  Christopher Paolini

  Forgotten, Fame, Realms

  Christopher Paolini (2011). “Eragon, Eldest, Brisingr Omnibus”, p.878, Random House

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• Dec. 7, 1941 - a date which will live in infamy -
  No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Winning, Long, People

  Pearl Harbor Address to the Nation, delivered 8 December 1941, Washington, D.C.

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• He is not dead who departs from life with a high and noble fame; but he is dead, even while living, whose brow is branded with infamy.

  Johann Ludwig Tieck

  Life, Noble, Fame

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• Those who say that life is worth living at any cost have already written an epitaph of infamy, for there is no cause and no person that they will not betray to stay alive.

  Sidney Hook

  Betrayal, Cost, Hook

  Sidney Hook, Vladimir Konstantinovich Bukovskiĭ, Paul Hollander (1987). “Soviet hypocrisy and Western gullibility”

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• He who can live in infamy is unworthy of life.

  Pierre Corneille

  Unworthy

  "Le Cid". Book by Pierre Corneille, act I, scene V, 1636.

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• There is a heroism in crime as well as in virtue. Vice and infamy have their altars and their religion.

  William Hazlitt

  Vices, Heroism, Virtue

  William Hazlitt (1839). “Sketches and Essays”, p.39

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• For what is history, but... huge libel on human nature, to which we industriously add page after page, volume after volume, as if we were holding up a monument to the honor, rather than the infamy of our species.

  Washington Irving

  History, Honor, Add

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• I was cured in my new infamy of all the tired wisdom of age. I would never weary into that tired state again - -I swore to myself, I would always be this raw, wet child hereafter.

  Clive Barker

  Children, Tired, Age

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• Pride breakfasted with plenty, dined with poverty, and supped with infamy.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Pride, Poverty, Plenty

  Jack Vincent, Benjamin Franklin (2010). “Benjamin Franklin's the Way to Wealth”, p.83, The Way to Wealth

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• Man has no right to kill his brother. It is no excuse that he does so in uniform: he only adds the infamy of servitude to the crime of murder.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Peace, Brother, War

  Percy Bysshe Shelley, Richard Herne Shepherd (1810). “The Prose Works of Percy Bysshe Shelley ... Ed. ... by Richard Herne Shepherd”, p.286

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• There's no difference between fame and infamy now. There's a new school of professional famous people that don't do anything. They don't create anything.

  Ricky Gervais

  Inspiration, School, Humor

  Interview with Scott Raab, www.esquire.com. January 12, 2012.

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• We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction, or infamy. We kill when, because it is easier, we countenance, or pretend to approve of atrophied social, political, educational, and religious institutions, instead of resolutely combating them.

  Hermann Hesse

  Religious, Educational, Eye

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• Is it no imputation to be arraigned before this House, in which I have sat forty years, and to have my name transmitted to posterity with disgrace and infamy?

  Robert Walpole

  Hypocrite, Years, Names

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• Always will we remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.... we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make very certain that this form of treachery shall never endanger us again.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Character, Winning, Long

  Franklin D. Roosevelt (1995). “The Essential Franklin Delano Roosevelt”, Gramercy

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• Yesterday, December 7, 1941 a date which will live in infamy the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan... We will gain the inevitable triumph so help us God.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Yesterday, America

  Franklin D. Roosevelt's Address to the Congress Asking That a State of War Be Declared Between the United States and Japan, www.loc.gov. December 8, 1941.

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• In this, our age of infamy Man's choice is but to be A tyrant, traitor, prisoner: No other choice has he.

  Alexander Pushkin

  Men, Tyrants, Choices

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• It is infamy to die, and not be missed.

  Carlos Wilcox

  Life, Dies

  Carlos Wilcox (1828). “Remains of the Rev. Carlos Wilcox ...: With a Memoir of His Life”, p.207

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• I have a chest full of all the insults, villainies, and infamies a man is capable of withstanding. . . . If you become famous, you will have to go through that.

  Mario Vargas Llosa

  Men, Insult, Withstanding

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• December 7, 1941. A date which will live in infamy.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  War, Air Force, December

  Address to joint session of Congress asking for declaration of war on Japan, 8 Dec. 1941

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• That diabolical Hell conceived principle of persecution rages amoung some and to their eternal Infamy the Clergy can furnish their Quota of Imps for such business.

  James Madison

  Religious, Religion, Liberty

  James Madison (1867). “1769-1793. v.2. 1794-1815. v.3. 1816-1828. v.4. 1829-1836”, p.12

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• Know what is evil, no matter how worshipped it may be. Let the man of sense not mistake it, even when clothed in brocade, or at times crowned in gold, because it cannot thereby hide its hypocrisy, for slavery does not lose its infamy, however noble the master.

  Baltasar Gracian

  Mistake, Men, Evil

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