False Prestige Quotes

A crown is no more than a hat that lets in the rain.

Eminence without merit earns deference without esteem.

Thought and knowledge are natures in which apparatus and pretension avail nothing. Gowns, and pecuniary foundations, though of towns of gold, can never countervail the least sentence or syllable of wit. Forget this, and out American colleges will recede in their public importance whilst they grow richer every year.

Just being famous feels cheap to me.

Titles of honor are like the impressions on coins, which add no value to gold or silver, but only render brass current.

What is called honors and dignities, and even honor and dignity, is generally fool's gold.

Titles and mottoes to books are like escutcheons and dignities in the hands of a king. The wise sometimes condescend to accept of them; but none but a fool would imagine them of any real importance. We ought to depend upon intrinsic merit, and not the slender helps of the title.

Titles are tinsel, power a corrupter, glorya bubble, and excessive wealth a libel on its possessor.

The more ignorant, reckless and thoughtless a doctor is, the higher his reputation soars even amongst powerful princes.

Acting is easy and fun. You earn a lot of money, and you bang out with girls. The profession is given tremendous significance within our society, but it's not really worthy of it.

The honors Hollywood has for the writer are as dubious as tissue-paper cuff links.

The acceptance to Harvard was more of trophy than a real possibility to me. I would have been miserable.

Reputation runs in a vicious circle, and Merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed at its own insignificance

Being a Georgia author is a rather specious dignity, on the same order as, for the pig, being a Talmadge ham.

A man attains greatness by his merits, not simply by occupying an exalted seat. Can we call a crow an eagle (garuda) simply because he sits on the top of a tall building.