Dignity does not consist in possessing honors, but in deserving them.
True dignity is never gained by place, and never lost when honors are withdrawn.
If I have done any honorable exploit, that is my monument; but if I have done none, all your statues will signify nothing.
One can give or withhold in a manner far more effective, sophisticated, useful, which is quite invisible to people who think that giving or withholding is done by external assessment. If you seek some mark of favour or 'promotion', know that you are not ready for it. Progress comes through capacity to learn, and is irresistible. Nobody can stand between you and knowledge if you are fit for it.
We are apt to love praise, but not deserve it. But if we would deserve it, we must love virtue more than that.
When the Higher Man does something worthy of admiration, it is an evidence of his Mastership, not the object of it.
I do regard her as one who is too modest for the world in general to be aware of half her accomplishments, and too highly accomplished for modesty to be natural of any other woman.
Only a man's character is the real criterion of worth
Real worth requires no interpreter: its everyday deeds form its emblem.
Nobody gets praised for the right reasons.
Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nordrove back Xerxes, nor christianized the world, nor abolished slavery.
The muses crown virtue when fortune refuses to do it.
It is not without reason that fame is awarded only after death. The cloud-dust of notoriety which follows and envelops the men who drive with the wind bewilders contemporary judgment.
When it comes to belts and rank, I don't care what belt I am; I don't care what rank I am. I'm proud that I've achieved high ranks through some great instructors around the world, but ultimately, the mat doesn't lie.
Fame often rests at first upon something accidental, and often, too, is swept away, or for a time removed; but neither genius nor glory, is conferred at once, nor do they glimmer and fall, like drops in a grotto, at a shout.
You don't tell the quality of a master by the size of his crowds.
The brilliant passes, like the dew at morn; The true endures, for ages yet unborn.
Aspire rather to be a hero than merely appear one.
True glory takes root, and even spreads; all false pretences, like flowers, fall to the ground; nor can any counterfeit last long.
Pygmies are pygmies still, though percht on Alps; And pyramids are pyramids in vales. Each man makes his own stature, builds himself. Virtue alone outbuilds the Pyramids; Her monuments shall last when Egypt's fall.
Those only deserve a monument who do not need one; that is, who have raised themselves a monument in the minds and memories of men.
That man, we may be sure, is a person of true worth, whom those who envy him most are yet forced to praise.
Popular glory is a perfect coquette; her lovers must toil, feel every inquietude, indulge every caprice, and perhaps at last be jilted into the bargain. True glory, on the other hand, resembles a woman of sense; her admirers must play no tricks. They feel no great anxiety, for they are sure in the end of being rewarded in proportion to their merit.
There have been as great souls unknown to fame as any of the most famous.
The thinking part of mankind do not form their judgment from events; and their equity will ever attach equal glory to those actions which deserve success, and those which have been crowned with it.
