Reputation Quotes - Page 29

• It is the folly of weak-minded people, to imagine they are what flattery or conceit represents them; and that it is useless for them to be what they are not, since they seem already to have acquired the reputation of it.

  Norm MacDonald

  People, Useless, Flattery

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• The Saudis have never shown any respect for human rights, either now or in the past. Even a petty burglar faces having one of his hands chopped off. The liberal press in America prefers to ignore all this, although they don't hesitate to blacken the reputation of Iran.

  Mohammed Reza Pahlavi

  Past, America, Rights

  "The Shah and I: The Confidential Diary of Iran's Royal Court, 1968-77". Book by Asadollah Alam, p. 535, 1991.

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• The reputation of generosity is to be purchased pretty cheap; it does not depend so much upon a man's general expense, as it does upon his giving handsomely where it is proper to give at all. A man, for instance, who should give a servant four shillings, would pass for covetous, while he who gave him a crown, would be reckoned generous; so that the difference of those two opposite characters, turns upon one shilling.

  Doug Stanhope

  Character, Men, Opposites

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• A vice sanctioned by the general opinion is merely a vice. The evil terminates in itself. A vice condemned by the general opinion produces a pernicious effect on the whole character. The former is a local malady; the latter, constitutional taint. When the reputation of the offender is lost, he too often flings the remainder of his virtue after it in despair.

  Thomas B. Macaulay

  Character, Evil, Despair

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• The greatest powers cannot injure a man's character whose reputation is unblemished among his party.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Party, Character, Men

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.627

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• The vulgar look upon a man, who is reckoned a fine speaker, as a phenomenon, a supernatural being, and endowed with some peculiargift of Heaven; they stare at him, if he walks in the park, and cry, that is he. You will, I am sure, view him in a juster light, and nulla formidine. You will consider him only as a man of good sense, who adorns common thoughts with the graces of elocution, and the elegancy of style. The miracle will then cease.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Men, Supernatural Beings, Light

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• The greatest dangers have their allurements, if the want of success is likely to be attended with a degree of glory. Middling dangers are horrid, when the loss of reputation is the inevitable consequence of ill success.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Success, Loss, Degrees

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.628

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• Men are apt to mistake, or at least to seem to mistake, their own talents, in hopes, perhaps, of misleading others to allow them that which they are conscious they do not possess. Thus lord Hardwicke valued himself more upon being a great minister of state, which he certainly was not, than upon being a great magistrate, which he certainly was.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mistake, Pride, Men

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• Never get a reputation for a small perfection if you are trying for fame in a loftier area. The world can only judge by generals, and it sees that those who pay considerable attention to minutiae seldom have their minds occupied with great things.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Character, Judging, Perfection

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• The reputation of a woman may also be compared to a mirror of crystal, shining and bright, but liable to be sullied by every breath that comes near it.

  Miguel de Cervantes

  Mirrors, Shining, May

  Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1866). “Adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha”, p.212

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• Be deaf unto the suggestions of tale-bearers, calumniators, pick-thank or malevolent detractors, who, while quiet men sleep, sowing the tares of discord and division, distract the tranquillity of charity and all friendly society. These are the tongues that set the world on fire--cankerers of reputation, and, like that of Jonah's gourd, wither a good name in a single night.

  Thomas Browne

  Sleep, Night, Men

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• It would have been a joy to me to be smiled upon, loved, encouraged, welcomed, and to obtain what I was so ready to give, kindness and goodwill. But to hunt down consideration and reputation - to force the esteem of others - seemed to me an effort unworthy of myself, almost a degradation.

  Henri Frederic Amiel

  Kindness, Giving, Joy

  "The Journal Intime of Henri-Frédéric Amiel". Book by Henri-Frédéric Amiel, translated by Mary Augusta Ward, 1882.

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• Who is it that does not voluntarily exchange his health, his repose, and his very life for reputation and glory? The most useless, frivolous, and false coin that passes current among us.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Doe, Coins, Useless

  Michel de Montaigne (2015). “Montaigne's Essays: Top Essays”, p.262, 谷月社

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• The man abandoned by his friends, one after another, without just cause, will acquire, the reputation of being hard to please, changeable, ungrateful, unsociable.

  Philibert Joseph Roux

  Friends, Men, Ungrateful

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• It is the long term investor who will in practice come in for the most criticism. For it is the essence of his behaviour that he should be eccentric, unconventional and rash in the eyes of the average opinion. If he is successful, that will only confirm the general belief in his rashness; and if in the short run he is unsuccessful, which is very likely, he will not receive much mercy. Worldly wisdom teaches that it is better for reputation to fail conventionally than to succeed unconventionally.

  John Maynard Keynes

  Running, Independent, Eye

  1936 The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money.

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• Gain at the expense of reputation is manifest loss.

  Publilius Syrus

  Loss, Gains, Manifest

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• Alas how difficult is it to preserve a high reputation!

  Publilius Syrus

  Difficult, Alas, Preserves

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• That should be regarded as a loss, which is won at the expense of our reputation.

  Publilius Syrus

  Loss, Should, Expenses

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• Reputation being essentially contemporaneous, is always at the mercy of the Envious and the Ignorant. But Fame, whose very birth is posthumous, and which is only known to exist by the echo of its footsteps through congenial minds, can neither be increased nor diminished by any degree of wilfulness.

  Anna Brownell Jameson

  Echoes, Ignorant, Mind

  "Memoirs and Essays, Washington Allston". As quoted in "Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations", p. 256-259, 1922.

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• Nothing so uncertain as general reputation. A man injures me from humor, passion, or interest; hates me because he has injured me; and speaks ill of me because he hates me.

  Henry Home, Lord Kames

  Hate, Passion, Men

  Henry Home (lord Kames.) (1818). “Introduction to the art of thinking, to which is prefixed an original life of the author”, p.50

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• Some men's reputation seems like seed-wheat, which thrives best when brought from a distance.

  Richard Whately

  Distance, Men, Wheat

  Richard Whately (1856). “Thoughts and Apophthegms: From the Writings of Archbishop Whateley”, p.248

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• There are few persons of greater worth than their reputation; but how many are there whose worth is far short of their reputation!

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Persons, Greater

  François duc de La Rochefoucauld, Stanisław I Leszczyński (King of Poland) (1851). “Moral Reflections, Sentences and Maxims of Francis, Duc de la Rochefoucauld”, p.160

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• Surmise is the gossamer that malice blows on fair reputations, the corroding dew that destroys the choice blossom. Surmise is primarily the squint of suspicion, and suspicion is established before it is confirmed.

  Johann Georg Ritter von Zimmermann

  Blow, Choices, Dew

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• Tis better never to be named than to be ill spoken of.

  Susanna Centlivre

  Ill

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• Reputations are shaped not by facts but by prejudices.

  Barbara Mertz

  Prejudice, Facts

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