Reputation

“ My happiness turns not upon the reality, but upon the seeming: upon my reputation with others.36 Such reputation then it must be my aim to acquire. I must combine the real profit of injustice with the outside show and reputation of justice. ”

“ How does society treat that splendid reputation, which was fifty years in building? Does it deduct but one day from the fifty years of reputation, and regard the crime as but a spot on the disk of a brilliant life? ”

“ How much honour and honesty have been forfeited to be graced with a title or a ribbon; how much genius and worth have sunk to the grave, without an escutcheon and without an epitaph!
As men of rank and fortune keep lacqueys to reinforce their claims to self-respect, so men of genius sometimes surround themselves with a coterie of admirers to increase their reputation with the public. ”

“ IAGO.
As I am an honest man, I thought you had received some bodily wound; there is more sense in that than in reputation. Reputation is an idle and most false imposition, oft got without merit and lost without deserving. You have lost no reputation at all, unless you repute yourself such a loser. What, man, there are ways to recover the general again: you are but now cast in his mood, a punishment more in policy than in malice, even so as one would beat his offenceless dog to affright an imperious lion: sue to him again, and he’s yours. ”

“ Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I have lost my reputation! I have lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial. ”

“ There is a difference between character and reputation. Character is what a man is; reputation is what he is thought to be. Character is within; reputation is without. Character is always real; reputation may be false. Character is substantial and enduring; reputation may be vapory and fleeting. ”

“ So reputation runs in a vicious circle, and merit limps behind it, mortified and abashed at its own insignificance. It has been said that the test of fame or popularity is to consider the number of times your name is repeated by others, or is brought to their recollection in the course of a year. At this rate, a man has his reputation in his own hands, and by the help of puffing and the press, may forestall the voice of posterity, and stun the ‘groundling’ ear of his contemporaries. ”

“ Character, as distinguished from reputation, is what we are intrinsically in moral and mental worth. Our reputations are only the various verdict of society concerning us. Our characters are our fixed value for time and eternity. ”

“ Still every one has to strive for reputation, that is to say, a good name. Rank, on the other hand, should be aspired to only by those who serve the state, and fame by very few indeed. In any case, reputation is looked upon as a priceless treasure, and fame as the most precious of all the blessings a man can attain,--the Golden Fleece, as it were, of the elect: whilst only fools will prefer rank to property. ”

“ They have earned a reputation, and that reputation adheres to them: they are cold and uninspiring. Such is their reputation, not always just, but who can say that it has not, on the whole, been earned? ”

“ If that's what it means to make a reputation,—to leave your character and your person, and the good name of your sainted relatives, and all you were, and all you had and thought and felt, so far as can be gathered by digging you out of your most private records, to be manipulated and bandied about and cheapened in the literary market as a chicken or a turkey or a goose is handled and bargained over at a provision stall, is n't it better to be content with the honest blue slate-stone and its inscription informing posterity that you were a worthy citizen and a respected father of a family? ”

“ In other words, I would have you choose those of established reputation rather than follow your own fancy. If you should not admire them at first, you will, by endeavouring to imitate them, find that the world has not been mistaken. ”

“ I say mortally, because I cannot doubt that some of us must fall, in endeavoring the next opportunity, to re-establish our reputation. Dear Reputation, what trouble do you not occasion, what danger do you not expose us to! ”

“ And that this advantage of reputation is, indeed, that which free and libertine reasoners propose to themselves, you will see by calling to mind the sort of subjects, which they are fondest to treat, and the sort of character, which they are most proud to assume. ”

“ The reasons are simple and easily told; it was imperative upon us that some one here should be selected to carry out our wishes in case of accident to ourselves, and your reputation as a man of the sternest integrity, unblemished honor, and business capacity, influenced them to select you in place of others better known, but, perhaps, not so reliable as yourself. ”

“ Reputation is not the thing primarily to be looked after in the exercise of virtue, for that is to affect the substance for the sake of the shadow, which is a kind of levity and weakness of mind; but look at virtue and the worth of it, as that which is first desirable, and reputation as a fair and useful accession to it. ”

“ In sooth, the reputation appears to have been easily won. To be thus celebrated as the reigning beauty of the universe seems merely to infer that she has been universal in the distribution of her favors. ”

“ Let me say seriously, frankly, your reputation as a fearless, brave, and true man is firmly established,—confidence also in your discretion and good judgment, as shown in this last debate and in the management of this whole affair. ”

“ Here, again, if the reputation of sincerity be so much valued, would it not have been a far better method of securing it, instead of making all these laboured professions of esteem, to have simply observed its rules in practice? How is it that so mature and able a statesman overlooked so simple and obvious a course? ”

“ Thou hast done every thing for the sake of reputation, and now thou art vainly trusting in thy deceitful works, instead of putting all thy trust in my son, who has offered himself to be a surety for thee. ”

“ Then every story that went from my workshop had to come up to the standard of my reputation, and there was a set of critics,—there is a set of critics now and everywhere,—that watch as narrowly for the decline of a man's reputation as ever a village half drowned out by an inundation watched for the falling of the waters. ”

“ A Fixed Reputation.—A fixed reputation was formerly a matter of the very greatest utility; and wherever society continues to be ruled by the herd-instinct, it is still most suitable for every individual to give to his character and business the appearance of unalterableness,—even when they are not so in reality. "One can rely on him, he remains the same"—that is the praise which has most significance in all dangerous conditions of society. ”

“ You blast a reputation heedlessly and without its being of any value to you. You shut it out for life from all that it holds dear and valuable. For what? Perhaps to gratify your lust for gossip.
You will not get off so easily as you think by ruining or attempting to ruin another’s reputation. You weaken yourself. ”

“ It is your reputation, honored sir, for justice, which emboldens me, who am but a comparative stranger, with no further claim to your consideration than one man has upon his fellow to do him right, to address you, and endeavor to secure your all-powerful interest in my behalf. ”

“ And reputation is like money: it may be required of us without warning. The little unsuspected evil on which we trip may swell up in a moment and prove to be the huge, Janus-like mountain of unpardonable sin. And his health may be required of any fool, any night or any day. ”

“ I imagined a man who has made some such impression upon the world as is recognised by public reputation, to compare his own achievement with such achievements as these, which are absolutely private, and neither seek nor desire any public reward. ”

“ And reputation bleeds in every word. ”

“ So you build up a great solid structure—yourself—out of all your deeds. You are making your character, your habits, your opinions.—And you are making your reputation too. And you will not be able to get rid of that. ”

“ He stopped before a picture-store and moodily gazed at a seascape in the window. He recalled that some sage has said, “Any man can make a reputation; it takes a real man to keep one.” He had a reputation, he reflected. ”

“ SECTION III.—Of the right to Honour and Reputation. 1. Honour is the attestation of another's excellence. Reputation is the opinion of many touching another's life and conduct. Honour is paid to a man to his face, whereas his reputation is bruited behind his back. Honour is taken away by insult, reputation by detraction. ”

“ Thus you might treat of the reputation as converser, as organizer, as literary man, as public servant, as friend of the poor, or whatever heading your hero's life affords.
Whatever method you may employ, you should remember that a human life does not appear in separate, distinct phases, that a man does not seem to be now this, now that, but rather all details, of whatever nature, mingle and fuse into a unit, however complicated it may be. ”

“ Joyfully I seized that noble fellow by the hand, and instantly accepted his proposition. “Of course,” said I, “a reputation is a very good thing; but no reputation can take the place of food, clothes, and a house to live in ”

“ The career, for instance, of that man who failed in love or in business or in politics is wrecked. His reputation is lost. Well, it was his will, as a social being, to aim at just such a career and to value just that sort of reputation. ”

“ If we would speak the truth, our reputation depends wholly upon that of the men ; so that if we expose them, what else do we do but disgrace ourselves 1 ? And although, indeed, we have a great many just com- plaints against them, yet all things being duly considered, our condition is much preferable to theirs. ”

“ Reputation for parts in any scene is equivocal, till we know by what kind of exertion that reputation is gained. No more can be said, in commending men of the greatest abilities, than that they understand well the subjects to which they have applied; and every department, every profession, would have its great men, if there were not a choice of objects for the understanding, and of talents for the mind, as well as of sentiments for the heart, and of habits for the active character. ”

“ How many people live on the reputation of the reputation they might have made! ”

“ What farther contributes to increase their solidity, is the interest of our reputation, after the opinion, that a merit or demerit attends justice or injustice, is once firmly established among mankind. There is nothing which touches us more nearly than our reputation, and nothing on which our reputation more depends than our conduct with relation to the property of others. ”

“ It is curious to observe, that at the same time that great admiration is pretended for a name of fixed reputation, objections are raised against those very qualities by which that great name was acquired. ”

“ These symptoms of a rising reputation gave me encouragement, as I was ever more disposed to see the favorable than unfavorable side of things, a turn of mind which it is more happy to possess than to be born to an estate of ten thousand a year. ”

“ Reputation is favorable notoriety as distinguished from fame, which is permanent approval of great deeds or noble thoughts by the best intelligence of mankind. ”

“ It is difficult to make a reputation, but it is even more difficult seriously to mar a reputation once properly made—so faithful is the public. ”