Vain Quotes - Page 19

• Feeling well that breathed words Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps Of grasshoppers against the sun.

  John Keats

  Feelings, Sun, Crocodiles

  John Keats (2015). “The Complete Poetry of John Keats: Ode on a Grecian Urn + Ode to a Nightingale + Hyperion + Endymion + The Eve of St. Agnes + Isabella + Ode to Psyche + Lamia + Sonnets and more from one of the most beloved English Romantic poets”, p.534, e-artnow

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• In the desert you become a discoverer. You discover your soul, which had been submerged in vain pursuits, which had been lost in the coils and toils of modern life. You discover your kinship with nature and man, which is evoked by the naturalness and the gentle humanity of the natives of the desert, and you will also discover God.

  Ameen Rihani

  Men, Humanity, Over You

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• Life is easy For the man who is without shame, Impudent as a crow, A vicious gossip, Vain, meddlesome, dissolute. But life is hard For the man who quietly undertakes The way of perfection, With purity, detachment and vigor. He sees light.

  Gautama Buddha

  Men, Light, Gossip

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• Oh how swiftly the glory of the world passes away! If only the lives of these men had been as admirable as their learning, their study and reading would have been to good purpose! But how many in this world care little for the service of God, and perish in their vain learning. Because they choose to be great rather than humble, they perish in their own conceit.

  Thomas a Kempis

  Reading, Humble, Men

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• We have been assured, Sir, in the Sacred Writings, that 'except the Lord build the House, they labor in vain that build it' I firmly believe this; by our partial local interests; our projects will be confounded, and we ourselves shall become a reproach and a by word down to future ages.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Believe, Writing, House

  Benjamin Franklin, Jared Sparks (1856). “The Works of Benjamin Franklin: Containing Several Political and Historical Tracts Not Included in Any Former Edition, and Many Letters, Official and Private Not Hitherto Published; with Notes and a Life of the Author”, p.514

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• I shall look for whatever success may attend my public service; and knowing that "except the Lord keep the city the watchman waketh but in vain," with fervent supplications for His favor, to His overruling providence I commit with humble but fearless confidence my own fate and the future destinies of my country.

  John Quincy Adams

  Country, Humble, Fate

  John Quincy Adams, William Harwood Peden (1946). “The Selected Writings of John and John Quincy Adams”

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• Why abandon a seat in your own home to wander in vain through dusty regions of another land? If you make one false step, you miss what is right before your eyes.

  Dogen

  Home, Eye, Land

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• In my creature impatience I am often caused to wish that there were some way to bring modern Christians into a deeper spiritual life painlessly by short, easy lessons; but such wishes are vain. No shortcut exists. God has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age. It is well that we accept the hard truth now: The man who would know God must give time to Him.

  Aiden Wilson Tozer

  Christian, Spiritual, Men

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• Adventure is humdrum and routine unless one assimilates it, unless one relates it to a central core which grows within and gives it contour and significance. Raw experience is empty, just as empty as the forecastle of a whaler as in a chamber of a counting house; for it is not what one does, but in a manifold sense, what one realizes that keeps existence from being vain and trivial.

  Lewis Mumford

  Adventure, Giving, House

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• But I feel vanity is a part of art and the non-vain are really non-artistic.

  Barry Webster

  Art, Vanity, Feels

  Barry Webster (2005). “The Sound of All Flesh”, p.14, The Porcupine's Quill

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• How can anyone lose who chooses to become a Christian? If, when he dies, there turns out to be no God and his faith was in vain, he has lost nothing...If, however, there is a God and a heaven and a hell. then he has gained heaven and his skeptical friends have lost everything.

  Blaise Pascal

  Christian, Heaven, Lost Everything

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• Actors can be many things - vain, venal, self-serving, obnoxious, bullies - but all of the good ones are great storytellers. I wanted to watch what my actors were doing and how they were telling the story.

  Paul Bettany

  Self, Bully, Stories

  Source: www.interviewmagazine.com

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• They say, the tongues of dying men
  Enforce attention, like deep harmony;
  Where words are scarce, they're seldom spent in vain;
  For they breathe truth, that breathe their words in pain.

  William Shakespeare

  Pain, Men, Dying

  William Shakespeare, Charles R. Forker (2002). “King Richard II: Third Series”, p.242, Cengage Learning EMEA

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• Do not waste this life in vain pursuits.

  Isaac of Nineveh

  Waste, This Life, Pursuit

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• To learn without thinking is labour in vain, to think without learning is desolation.

  Confucius

  Thinking, Desolation, Labour

  Confucius (1996). “Le Lun Yü en français”

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• Love loves for ever,
  And finds a sort of joy in pain,
  And gives with nought to take again,
  And loves too well to end in vain:
  Is the gain small then?
  Love laughs at "never",
  Outlives our life, exceeds the span
  Appointed to mere mortal man:
  All which love is and does and can
  Is all in all then.

  Christina Rossetti

  Pain, Love Is, Men

  Christina Rossetti (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Christina Rossetti (Illustrated)”, p.648, Delphi Classics

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• The laws keep up their credit, not by being just, but because they are laws; 'tis the mystic foundation of their authority; they have no other, and it well answers their purpose. They are often made by fools; still oftener by men who, out of hatred to equality, fail in equity; but always by men, vain and irresolute authors.

  Michel de Montaigne

  Men, Law, Hatred

  Michel de Montaigne (1877). “The Essays of Montaigne”, p.386

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• O speculators about perpetual motion, how many vain chimeras have you created in the like quest? Go and take your place with the seekers after gold.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Gold, Quests, Chimera

  Leonardo (da Vinci) (1906). “Note Books: Arranged and Rendered Into English, with Introd”

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• Alas!... what is it, valiant knight, save an offering of sacrifice to a demon of vain glory, and a passing through the fire of Moloch? What remains to you as a prize of all the blood you have spilled, of all the travail and pain you have endured, of all the tears which your deeds have caused, when death hath broken the strong man's spear, and overtaken the speed of his war-horse?

  Walter Scott

  Strong, Horse, Pain

  Walter Scott (2015). “Heroes of the Scottish Highlands: Ivanhoe, Waverley and Rob Roy (3 Unabridged Illustrated Classics): Historical Novels from the Author of The Pirate, The Heart of Midlothian, Old Mortality, The Guy Mannering, The Antiquary, The Bride of Lammermoor and Anne of Geierstein”, p.261, e-artnow

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• Quack: A boastful pretender to arts which he does not understand. A vain boastful pretender to physick; An artful, tricking practitioner in physick.

  Samuel Johnson

  Art, Doe, Quacks

  Samuel Johnson (1839). “Dictionary of the English Language ...”

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• Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain.

  Joseph Addison

  Let Me

  Joseph Addison (1856). “The works of Joseph Addison: including the whole contents of B. Hurd's edition, with letters and other pieces not found in any previous collection, and Macaulay's essay on his life and works”, p.460

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• Compliments make me vain: & when I am vain, I am insolent & overbearing. It is a pity, too, because I love compliments. I love them even when they are not so. My child, I can live on a good compliment two weeks with nothing else to eat.

  Mark Twain

  Children, Two, Compliment

  Samuel Langhorne Clemens, Mark Twain (2009). “Mark Twain's Aquarium: The Samuel Clemens-Angelfish Correspondence, 1905-1910”, p.16, University of Georgia Press

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• It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.

  Thomas Jefferson

  Practice, Effort, Sincerity

  Thomas Jefferson, Brett F. Woods (2009). “Thomas Jefferson: Thoughts on War and Revolution”, p.195, Algora Publishing

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• Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing.

  Ben Jonson

  Imperfect Things, Light, Opinion

  Ben Jonson, Robert S. Miola (2000). “Every Man in His Humour: Quarto Version”, p.92, Manchester University Press

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• In vain we build the city if we do not first build the man.

  Edwin Markham

  Men, Cities, Firsts

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