Fame Is A Form Of Incomprehension

Pieter Claesz - Vanitas Still Life
There is no exercise of the intellect which is not, in the final analysis, useless. A philosophical doctrine begins as a plausible description of the universe; with the passage of the years it becomes a mere chapter - if not a paragraph or a name - in the history of philosophy. In literature, this eventual caducity is even more notorious. The Quixote - Menard told me - was, above all, an entertaining book; now it is the occasion for patriotic toasts, grammatical insolence and obscene de luxe editions. Fame is a form of incomprehension, perhaps the worst. - Jorge Louis Borges