Vain Quotes - Page 14

• The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Father, Eye, Ambition

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2005). “Frankenstein”, p.36, Prestwick House Inc

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• Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
  Against stupidity the very gods
  Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
  Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
  Wise foundress of the system of the world,
  Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
  Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
  Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
  Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Death, Wise, Daughter

  Friedrich Schiller (1861). “Schiller's Complete Works”, p.435

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• To be vain of one's rank or place is to show that one is below it.

  Stanisław I Leszczyński

  Class, Shows

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• Nations! What are nations? Tartars! and Huns! and Chinamen! Like insects they swarm. The historian strives in vain to make them memorable. It is for want of a man that there are so many men. It is individuals that populate the world.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Memorable, Men, World

  Henry David Thoreau, Odell Shepard (1961). “The Heart of Thoreau's Journals”, p.43, Courier Corporation

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• There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Roots, Evil

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.120

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• Was it Gorky who had said, "If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered them in vain, indeed you have lived in vain".

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Children, Parenting, Said

  "Cancer Ward".

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• It is in vain to ridicule a rich fool, for the laughers will be on his side.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Fool, Sides, Wealth

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• Vain is the hope of finding pleasure in that which one has hitherto disdained; as when the warrior hopes to find pleasure in the joys of the sedentaries.

  Antoine de Saint-Exupery

  Warrior, Joy, Pleasure

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• It is vain for the sober man to knock at poesy's door.

  Plato

  Men, Doors, Poetry

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• Knowing what we must do is neither fundamental nor difficult, but to comprehend which presumptions and vain prejudices we must rid ourselves of in order to be able to educate our children is most difficult.

  Maria Montessori

  Children, Knowing, Order

  Maria Montessori (1970). “The child in the family”, Contemporary Books

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• One says a lot in vain, refusing; The other mainly hears the "No."

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

  "Iphigenia in Tauris". Play by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. Act 1, Scene 3, 1786.

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• Laws are often made by fools, and even more often by men who fail in equity because they hate equality: but always by men, vain authorities who can resolve nothing.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Hate, Men, Law

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• And the small ripple spilt upon the beach Scarcely o'erpass'd the cream of your champagne, When o'er the brim the sparkling bumpers reach, That spring-dew of the spirit! the heart's rain! Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please,—the more because they preach in vain,— Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter, Sermons and soda-water the day after.

  Lord Byron

  Beach, Laughter, Spring

  Lord Byron (2013). “Don Juan”, p.83, Simon and Schuster

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• Yes, one must suffer, even in vain, so as not to have lived in vain.

  Antonio Porchia

  Adversity, Suffering

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• Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Life, Two, Looks

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1952). “Life and Letters”

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• The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Miserable, Pleasure

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.108

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• No reliance can be placed on the friendship of kings, nor vain hope put in the melodious voice of boys; for that passes away like a vision, and this vanishes like a dream.

  Saadi

  Dream, Kings, Boys

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• All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Running, Art, Long

  Sydney J. Harris (1986). “Clearing the ground”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Satisfaction, Praise

  Samuel Johnson (1833). “The Life of Johnson: with Maxims and Observations: Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Selected from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order”, p.218

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• There is (as I now find) no remorse for time long past, even for what may have mortified us or made us ashamed of ourselves when it was happening: there is a pleasant panoramic sense of what it all was and how it all had to be. Why, if we are not vain or snobbish, need we desire that it should have been different? The better things we missed may yet be enjoyed or attained by someone else somewhere: why isn't that just as good? And there is no regret, either, in the sense of wishing the past to return, or missing it: it is quite real enough as it is, there at its own date and place.

  George Santayana

  Regret, Real, Past

  "The Letters of George Santayana".

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• Morality, thou deadly bane, Thy tens o' thousands thou hast slain! Vain is his hope, whose stay an' trust is In moral mercy, truth, and justice!

  Robert Burns

  Justice, Morality, Mercy

  Robert Burns (1802). “The Poetical Works of the Late Robert Burns: With an Account of His Life”, p.168

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• The terrors of truth and dart of death To faith alike are vain.

  Herman Melville

  Faith, Terror

  Herman Melville (1866). “Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War”, p.15

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• O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

  Ben Jonson

  Fear, Passion, Men

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The Works of Ben Jonson...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir”, p.133

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• Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

  John Milton

  Hate, Winning, Hands

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• The vain poet is of the opinion that nothing of his can be too much: he sends to you basketful after basketful of juiceless fruit, covered with scentless flowers.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Flower, Too Much, Fruit

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Last Fruit Off an Old Tree”, p.111

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