Vain Quotes - Page 28

• How foolish to wear oneself out in vain longing for warmth! Solitude is independence.

  Hermann Hesse

  Solitude, Independence, Longing

  "Six Novels: With Other Stories and Essays".

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• The rosy hearth, the lamplight's narrow beam, The meditation that is rather dream, With looks that lose themselves in cherished looks; The hour of steaming tea and banished books; The sweetness of the evening at an end, The dear fatigue, and right to rest attained, And worshipped expectation of the night,— Oh, all these things, in unrelenting flight, My dream pursues through all the vain delays, Impatient of the weeks, mad at the days!

  Paul Verlaine

  Dream, Book, Night

  Paul Verlaine (1906). “Poems”

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• In vain have oceans been squandered on you, in vain the sun, wonderfully seen through Whitman’s eyes. You have used up the years and they have used up you, and still, and still, you have not written the poem.

  Jorge Luis Borges

  Ocean, Eye, Years

  Jorge Luis Borges, Anthony Kerrigan (1968). “A Personal Anthology”, p.34, Grove Press

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• There is something peculiarly dispriting about the emptiness that wells up when, in a strange city, one dials the same telephone numbers in vain.

  W. G. Sebald

  Cities, Numbers, Telephones

  W. G. Sebald (2016). “Vertigo”, p.20, New Directions Publishing

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• Pride... is a very common failing, I believe. By all that I have ever read, I am convinced that it is very common indeed; that human nature is particularly prone to it, and that there are very few of us who do not cherish a feeling of self-complacency on the score of some quality or the other, real or imaginary. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

  Jane Austen

  Real, Believe, Pride

  "Pride and Prejudice". Book by Jane Austen, January 28, 1813.

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• For my omniscience paid I toll In infinite remorse of soul. All sin was of my sinning, all Atoning mine, and mine the gall Of all regret. Mine was the weight Of every brooded wrong, the hate That stood behind each envious thrust, Mine every greed, mine every lust. And all the while for every grief, Each suffering, I craved relief With individual desire, – Craved all in vain! And felt fierce fire About a thousand people crawl; Perished with each, — then mourned for all!

  Edna St. Vincent Millay

  Regret, Hate, Grief

  Edna St. Vincent Millay (2013). “Renascence and Other Poems”, p.3, Courier Corporation

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• Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world's view of us.

  Virginia Woolf

  Fashion, Views, Clothes

  Virginia Woolf (1995). “Orlando: A Biography”, p.92, Wordsworth Editions

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• Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

  Wilfred Owen

  Missing, Mastery, World

  Poems (1963 ed.) "Strange Meeting"

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• But do you remember Gandalf’s words: Even Gollum may have something yet to do? But for him, Sam, I could not have destroyed the Ring. The Quest would have been in vain, even at the bitter end. So let us forgive him! For the Quest is achieved, and now all is over. I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things, Sam

  J. R. R. Tolkien

  Forgiving, Quests, May

  J.R.R. Tolkien (2012). “The Return of the King: Being the Third Part of the Lord of the Rings”, p.926, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The mind-is not the heart. I may yet live, as I know others live, To wish in vain to let go with the mind- Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me That I need learn to let go with the heart.

  Robert Frost

  Letting Go, Heart, Sleep

  Robert Frost (2013). “Delphi Works of Robert Frost (Illustrated)”, Delphi Classics

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• All your scholarship, all your study of Shakespeare and Wordsworth would be in vain, if at the same time you do not build your character, and attain mastery over your thoughts and actions.

  Mahatma Gandhi

  Spiritual, Character, Would Be

  "Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore".

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• She was in that highly-wrought state when the reasoning powers act with great rapidity: the state a man is in before a battle or a struggle, in danger, and at the decisive moments of life - those moments when a man shows once and for all what he is worth, that his past was not lived in vain but was a preparation for these moments.

  Leo Tolstoy

  Struggle, Past, Men

  Leo Tolstoy (2016). “ANNA KARENINA – Two Unabridged Translations in One Premium Edition (World Classics Series): The Greatest Romantic Tragedy of All Times from the Renowned Author of War and Peace & The Death of Ivan Ilyich (Including Biographies of the Author)”, p.620, e-artnow

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• I remember my youth and the feeling that will never come back any more /the feeling that I could last for ever, outlast the sea, the earth, and all men; the deceitful feeling that lures us on to joys, to perils, to love, to vain effort /to death; the triumphant conviction of strength, the heat of life in the handful of dust, the glow in the heart that with every year grows dim, grows cold, grows small, and expires /and expires, too soon, too soon /before life itself

  Joseph Conrad

  Love, Heart, Men

  "Youth" (1902)

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• If I regarded my life from the point of view of the pessimist, I should be undone. I should seek in vain for the light that does not visit my eyes and the music that does not ring in my ears. I should beg night and day and never be satisfied. I should sit apart in awful solitude, a prey to fear and despair. But since I consider it a duty to myself and to others to be happy, I escape a misery worse than any physical deprivation.

  Helen Keller

  Inspirational, Happiness, Encouragement

  Helen Keller (2010). “The World I Live In and Optimism: A Collection of Essays”, p.102, Courier Corporation

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• But words are vain; reject them all— They utter but a feeble part: Hear thou the depths from which they call, The voiceless longing of my heart.

  George MacDonald

  Heart, Depth, Voiceless

  George MacDonald (2015). “Delphi Complete Works of George MacDonald (Illustrated)”, p.46, Delphi Classics

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• What is life? Thoughts and feelings arise, with or without our will, and we employ words to express them. We are born, and our birth is unremembered and our infancy remembered but in fragments. We live on, and in living we lose the apprehension of life. How vain is it to think that words can penetrate the mystery of our being. Rightly used they may make evident our ignorance of ourselves, and this is much.

  Percy Bysshe Shelley

  Ignorance, Thinking, Feelings

  Percy Bysshe Shelley (1840). “Essays, letters from abroad, translations and fragments, ed. by mrs. Shelley”, p.177

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• Listen, God love everything you love - and a mess of stuff you don't. But more than anything else, God love admiration. You saying God vain? I ast. Naw, she say. Not vain, just wanting to share a good thing. I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don't notice it. What it do when it pissed off? I ast. Oh, it make something else. People think pleasing God is all God care about. But any fool living in the world can see it always trying to please us back.

  Alice Walker

  Thinking, Color, Purple

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• All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide.

  Lewis Carroll

  Hands, Skills, Afternoon

  Lewis Carroll (1913). “Alice's Adventures in Wonderland”, p.3, PDFreeBooks.org

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• Faith's most severe tests come not when we see nothing, but when we see a stunning array of evidence that seems to prove our faith vain.

  Elisabeth Elliot

  Tests, Stunning, Evidence

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• i shall imagine life is not worth dying,if (and when)roses complain their beauties are in vain but though mankind persuades itself that every weed's a rose,roses(you feel certain)will only smile

  e. e. cummings

  Weed, Ifs And, Rose

  E. E. Cummings, Richard Kostelanetz, John M. Rocco (1999). “AnOther E.E. Cummings”, p.169, W. W. Norton & Company

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• And all knowledge is vain save when there is work, and all work is empty save when there is love; and when you work with love you bind yourself to yourself, and to one another, and to God.

  Khalil Gibran

  Life, Work, Love You

  Khalil Gibran (2007). “Kahlil Gibran: Masterpieces”

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• It is in vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, “Peace! Peace!” — but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

  Patrick Henry

  Life, Sweet, Peace

  Speech in Virginia Convention, Richmond, Va., 23 Mar. 1775.

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• Good-bye, my moonsong and my breath, my white nights and golden days, my fresh water and my fire. Good-bye, and may you find a better life, find comfort again and your breathless smile, and when your beloved face lights up once more at the Western sunrise, be sure what I felt for you was not in vain. Good-bye and have faith, my Tatiana.

  Paullina Simons

  Night, Fire, Light

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• One day I wrote her name upon the strand, But came the waves and washèd it away: Again I wrote it with a second hand, But came the tide and made my pains his prey. Vain man (said she) that dost in vain assay A mortal thing so to immortalise; For I myself shall like to this decay, And eke my name be wipèd out likewise. Not so (quod I); let baser things devise To die in dust, but you shall live by fame; My verse your virtues rare shall eternise, And in the heavens write your glorious name: Where, when as Death shall all the world subdue, Our love shall live, and later life renew.

  Edmund Spenser

  Pain, Writing, Men

  'Amoretti' (1595) sonnet 75

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• Speaking the Lord’s name with reverence must simply be part of our lives as members of the Church... we do not use foul language. We do not curse or defame. We do not use the Lord’s name in vain. It is not difficult to become perfect in avoiding a swearing habit, for if one locks his mouth against all words of cursing,... he is en route to perfection in that matter.

  Spencer W. Kimball

  Names, Perfect, Church

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