…I’m not interested in any reputation that has to be sought.
~ Jim Harrison / Paris Review
Abraham Lincoln on Character
“Character is like a tree and reputation like a shadow. The shadow is what we think of it; the tree is the real thing.”
~ Abraham Lincoln
Cicero on Slander
“As fire when thrown into water is cooled down and put out, so also a false accusation when brought against a man of the purest and holiest character, boils over and is at once dissipated, and vanishes and threats of heaven and sea, himself standing unmoved.”
~ Cicero
Benjamin Franklin on Reputation
Glass, china, and reputation are easily crack’d, and never well mended.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin on Reputation
An ill wound, but not an ill name, may be healed.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin on Reputation
Act uprightly, and despise calumny; dirt may stick to a mud wall, but not to polish’d marble.
~ Benjamin Franklin
Charlie Munger on Reputation and Integrity
Remember that reputation and integrity are your most valuable assets—and can be lost in a heartbeat.
~ Charlie Munger
Joan Didion on Reputation
“The dismal fact is that self-respect has nothing to do with the approval of others — who are, after all, deceived easily enough; has nothing to do with reputation, which, as Rhett Butler told Scarlett O’Hara, is something people with courage can do without.”
~ Joan Didion
William Shakespeare on Reputations
“Men’s evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.”
~ William Shakespeare
Epictetus on Agency
” … not within our power are our body, our property, our reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not our own doing.”
~ Epictetus
Cato The Elder on Gossip
“We cannot control the evil tongues of others; but a good life enables us to disregard them.”
~ Cato the Elder
Epictetus on Reputation
If evil be spoken of you and it be true, correct yourself, if it be a lie, laugh at it.
~ Epictetus
Shakespeare on Reputation
“Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. My reputation, Iago, my reputation!”
~ William Shakespeare