Fame (n.) after death is no better than oblivion.
Fame (n.) is covered over like the seashore, each new heap of sand hiding what was there before.
Fame (n.) is nothing but certain people's opinions and voices — so look hard at who those people are.
Fame (n.) called eternal is emptiness: even the names that shone fade into legend, and then oblivion covers them.
Fame (n.) is handed out by people who contradict themselves and one another, and whom you could not respect if you saw them as they are.
Fame (n.) is kept alive by mortals who will soon die themselves, who do not know even who they are — let alone a man long dead.
Fame (n.) dies on both ends: praiser and praised, rememberer and remembered, all soon gone — and they can't even agree with one another.
Fame (n.) of the merely ordinary dies with the last breath; even the wonders of their age fade into fable — all is vanity.
Fame (n.) after death is vanity: fretting over how posterity will remember you is like lamenting that, centuries before your birth, nobody knew your name.
Fame (n.) fails on three counts: many have never heard your name, many will soon forget it, and many who commend you now will soon speak ill of you, so that nothing this world affords is worth the while.