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Quotations about honors
Note that not all quotations have been tagged, so the Search function may find additional quotations on this topic.
You can tell the character of every man when you see how he gives and receives praise.
Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC-AD 65) Roman statesman, philosopher, playwright [Lucius Annaeus Seneca]
Moral Letters to Lucilius [Epistulae morales ad Lucilium], Letter 52 “On choosing our teachers,” Sec. 12
(Source)
Glory paid to ashes comes too late.
[Cineri gloria sera venit.]
Martial (AD c.39-c.103) Spanish Roman poet, satirist, epigrammatist [Marcus Valerius Martialis]
Epigrams [Epigrammata], Book 1, Epigram 25 “To Faustinus”
Alt. trans.:
- To the ashes of the dead glory comes too late. [Ker (1919)]
- Glory comes too late, when paid only to our ashes. [Bohn (1871)]
- Too late men praise unto our ashes give. [Anon., (1695)]
- For honours after death too late arrive. [Hay]
What good is having laurels if you can’t rest on them?
Tom Lehrer (b. 1928) American mathematician, satirist, songwriter
People (11 Jan 1982)
(Source)
Lehrer has used the phrase and variants many times over the years.
When you get to be President, there are all those things, the honors, the twenty-one gun salutes, all those things. You have to remember it isn’t for you. It’s for the Presidency.
Harry S Truman (1884-1972) US President (1945-1953)
In Merle Miller, Plain Speaking: An Oral Biography of Harry S. Truman, ch. 15 (1973)
It is not titles that honor men, but men honor the titles.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) Italian politician, philosopher, political scientist
The Discourses, 3.38 (1517) [tr. Detmold (1940)]
