Alain de Botton Quotes

Age makes all things greater after their death; a name comes to the tongue easier from the grave.

The popularity of an individual in life often only manifests itself in death.

What a waste of time to be posthumously famous.

I am afraid that if you want to go down into history you'll have to do something for it.

Every man of genius is considerably helped by being dead.

Of present fame think little, and of future less; the praises that we receive after we are buried, like the flowers that are strewed over our grave, may be gratifying to the living, but they are nothing to the dead.

Posthumous reputations have little to do with real lives.

I thought I had to make an impact on history. I had to become the greatest choreographer of my time. That was my mission. Posterity deals with us however it sees fit. But I gave it 20 years of my best shot.

I hope when I'm dead I'll be considered an icon, though.

I'm lucky. Usually you're dead to get your own museum, but I'm still alive to see mine.

I don't talk about success. I don't know what it is. Wait until I'm dead.

Oh, you know, your legacy's all you're gonna be remembered by.

Fame is an undertaker that pays but little attention to the living, but bedizens the dead, furnishes out their funerals, and follows them to the grave

The hero is known for achievements; the celebrity for well-knowns. The hero reveals the possibilities of human nature. The celebrity reveals the possibilities of the press and media. Celebrities are people who make news, but heroes are people who make history. Time makes heroes but dissolves celebrities.

Posthumous fame is a plant of tardy growth, for our body must be the seed of it; or we may liken it to a torch, which nothing but the last spark of life can light up; or we may compare it to the trumpet of the archangel, for it is blown over the dead; but unlike that awful blast, it is of earth, not of heaven, and can neither rouse nor raise us.

I can't picture people talking about me 50 years from now.

Seldom comes Glory till a man be dead.

Whether a man is a legend or not is decided by history, not fortune tellers.

Time, which alone makes the reputation of men, ends by making their defects respectable.

When the 'Guardian' is commissioning writers to write obituary pieces about you and your career... it doesn't get much nastier than that. And you've just got to go, 'It doesn't actually matter.'

It's not whether you win or lose, it's how many people remember you when you die.

They say you can do honest, sincere work for decades, but you're given in general a 10-year period when what you do touches the zeitgeist - when you're relevant. And I'm aware of that, and I don't want my time to go by.

History passes the final judgment.

I want to go down in history.

I know if I were to drop dead now, people would probably write nice things in the obit.