Quotes about reputation

A good name is better than precious ointment. [Ecclesiastes 7:1]

— Bible

It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you'll do things differently.

— Warren Buffett

To disregard what the world thinks of us is not only arrogant but utterly shameless.

— Marcus T. Cicero

There are two way of establishing a reputation, one to be praised by honest people and the other to be accused by rogues. It is best, however, to secure the first one, because it will always be accompanied by the latter.

— Charles Caleb Colton

The two most precious things this side of the grave are our reputation and our life. But it is to be lamented that the most contemptible whisper may deprive us of the one, and the weakest weapon of the other.

— Charles Caleb Colton

I'd like people to think of me as someone who cares about them.

— Princess of Wales Diana

Reputation is rarely proportioned to virtue.

— St. Evermond

You can't build a reputation on what you are going to do.

— Henry Ford

Glass, china, and reputation are easily cracked, and never mended well.

— Benjamin Franklin

His reputation is what men say he is. That can be damaged; but reputation is for time, character is for eternity.

— John B. Gough

A remarkable thing about Shakespeare is that he is really very good in spite of all the people who say he is very good.

— Robert Graves

A reputation once broken may possibly be repaired, but the world will always keep their eyes on the spot where the crack was.

— Joseph Hall

Time goes by, reputation increases, ability declines.

— Dag Hammarskjold

The great difficulty is first to win a reputation; the next to keep it while you live; and the next to preserve it after you die, when affection and interest are over, and nothing but sterling excellence can preserve your name. Never suffer youth to be an excuse for inadequacy, nor age and fame to be an excuse for indolence.

— Benjamin Haydon

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

— Oliver Wendell Holmes

What people say behind your back is your standing in the community.

— Edgar Watson Howe

He that has the name to be an early riser may sleep till noon.

— James Howell

Good will, like a good name, is got by many actions, and lost by one.

— Lord Jeffrey

The blaze of reputation cannot be blown out, but it often dies in the socket; a very few names may be considered as perpetual lamps that shine unconsumed.

— Samuel Johnson

For God's sake (I never was more serious) don't make me ridiculous any more by terming me gentle-hearted in print... substitute drunken dog, ragged head, seld-shaven, odd-eyed, stuttering, or any other epithet which truly and properly belongs to the gentleman in question.

— Charles Lamb

We would all like a reputation for generosity and we'd all like to buy it cheap.

— Mignon McLaughlin

Kindly words do not enter so deeply into men as a reputation for kindness.

— Mencius (Mengzi Meng-tse)

Until you have lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is.

— Margaret Mitchell

If I take care of my character, my reputation will take care of me.

— Dwight L. Moody

It is generally much more shameful to lose a good reputation than never to have acquired it.

— Pliny The Elder

The average person's ear weighs what you are, not what you were.

— Francis Quarles

Should envious tongues some malice frame; to soil and tarnish your good name; Live it Down!

— Henry Rink

The Bible give us a list of human stories on both sides of the ledger. On list of human stories is used examples -- do what these people did. Another list of human stories is used as warnings -- don't do what these people did. So if your story ever gets in one of these books, make sure they use it as an example, not a warning.

— Jim Rohn

My reputation is a media creation.

— John Lydon Rotten

No man can understand why a woman shouldn't prefer a good reputation to a good time.

— Helen Rowland

Reputation are made every day and every minute.

— Christopher Ruel

I am better than my reputation.

— Johann Friedrich Von Schiller

Reputation, reputation, reputation! O, I ha lost my reputation, I ha lost the immortal part of myself, and what remains is bestial!

— William Shakespeare

My reputation grew with every failure.

— George Bernard Shaw

It ain't often that a man's reputation outlasts his money.

— Henry Wheeler Shaw

The way to gain a good reputation is to endeavor to be what you desire to appear.

— Socrates

A man's judgment is best when he can forget himself and any reputation he may have acquired and can concentrate wholly on making the right decisions.

— Raymond Spruance

Ones reputation is like a shadow, it is gigantic when it precedes you, and a pigmy in proportion when it follows.

— Charles Maurice De Talleyrand

The reputation of a man is like his shadow, gigantic when it precedes him, and pigmy in its proportions when it follows.

— Charles Maurice De Talleyrand

The reputation of a thousand years may be determined by the conduct of one hour.

— Source Unknown

The easiest way to get a reputation is to go outside the fold, shout around for a few years as a violent atheist or a dangerous radical, and then crawl back to the shelter.

— Source Unknown

Reputations will continue to be made by many acts and be lost by one.

— Source Unknown

Nobody raises his own reputation by lowering others

— Source Unknown

It is easier for a woman to defend her virtue against men than her reputation against women.

— Source Unknown

One can survive everything nowadays, except death, and live down anything except a good reputation.

— Oscar Wilde

Your women of honor, as you call em, are only chary of their reputations, not their persons; and 'Tis scandal that they would avoid, not men.

— William Wycherley