Ah, pensive scholar, what is fame?
A fitful tongue of leaping flame:
A giddy whirlwind's fickle gust,
That lifts a pinch of mortal dust;
A few swift years, and who can show,
Which dust was Bill, and which was Joe? [ O. W. Holmes ]
The fickle pensioners of Morpheus' train. [ Milton ]
Praise none too much, for all are fickle. [ English Proverb, collected by George Herbert ]
O Fortune, Fortune! all men call thee fickle. [ William Shakespeare ]
Fickle Fortune reigns, and, undiscerning, scatters crowns and chains. [ Pope ]
Fickle as the wind, I love Tibur when at Rome, and Rome when at Tibur. [ Horace ]
Honor is unstable, and seldom the same; for she feeds upon opinion, and is as fickle as her food. [ Colton ]
The fickle mob, how they are driven round by every wind that blows! Woe to him who leans on this reed! [ Friedrich Schiller ]
Female beauties are as fickle in their faces as in their minds; though casualties should spare them, age brings in a necessity of decay. [ Boyle ]
Applause waits on success: the fickle multitude, like the light straw that floats along the street, glide with the current still, and follow fortune. [ Franklin ]
Words, those fickle daughters of the earth,
are the creation of a being that is finite, and when applied to explain that which is infinite, they fail; for that which is made surpasses not the maker; nor can that which is immeasurable by our thoughts be measured by our tongues. [ Colton ]