Vain Quotes - Page 36

• You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

  Leonard Cohen

  Light, Names, Broken

  Song: Hallelujah

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• Shall this nectar Run useless, then, to waste? or ... these lips, That open like the morn, breathing perfumes, On such as dare approach them, be untouch'd? They must--nay, 'tis in vain to make resistance-- Be often kissed and tasted.

  Philip Massinger

  Running, Breathing, Useless

  Philip Massinger, John Ferriar (1813). “The Plays of Philip Massinger: The bondman. The renegado. The parliament of love. The Roman actor. The great Duke of Florence”, p.265

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• There are few who would need advisers, if they were only accustomed to appeal to themselves in their calmest, holiest moments. If, when embarrassed with doubt as to any course of action, they would turn aside from the immediate tumult of the world, and from the vain speaking of those who "darken counsel by words without knowledge;" and would then commune with their hearts alone, at night, the heavens their silent counsellors, they would act not always in accordance with the wise men of this world, but with that wisdom which bringeth peace.

  Arthur Helps

  Wise, Wisdom, Heart

  Sir Arthur Helps (1883). “Thoughts in the Cloister and the Crowd”

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• What is there in places empty of matter? and Whence is it that the sun and planets gravitate toward one another without dense matter between them? Whence is it that Nature doth nothing in vain? and Whence arises all that order and beauty which we see in the world? To what end are comets? and Whence is it that planets move all one and the same way in orbs concentrick, while comets move all manner of ways in orbs very excentrick? and What hinders the fixed stars from falling upon one another?

  Isaac Newton

  Stars, Moving, Fall

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• Hence, all you vain delights, As short as are the nights Wherein you spend your folly! There's naught in this life sweet But only melancholy; O sweetest melancholy!

  John Fletcher

  Sweet, Night, Delight

  John Fletcher, “Melancholy”

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• Galen , in the third section of his book, "The Use of the Limbs," says correctly that it would be in vain to expect to see living beings formed of the blood of menstruous women and the semen virile, who will not die, will never feel pain, or will move perpetually, or shine like the sun. This dictum of Galen is part of the following more general proposition: Whatever is formed of matter receives the most perfect form possible in that species of matter; in each individual case the defects are in accordance with that individual matter.

  Maimonides

  Pain, Moving, Book

  Moses Maimonides, Aeterna Press (1948). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.436, Aeterna Press

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• Actions are divided as regards their object into four classes; they are either purposeless , unimportant , or vain , or good .

  Maimonides

  Class, Four, Action

  Moses Maimonides (1963). “The Wisdom of Moses Maimonides”

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• The philosophers likewise assume that in Nature there is nothing in vain, so that everything that is not the product of human industry serves a certain purpose, which may be known or unknown to us.

  Maimonides

  Purpose, May, Philosopher

  Moses Maimonides (2012). “The Guide for the Perplexed”, p.308, Courier Corporation

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• For, until the wisdom of men bear some proportion to the wisdom of God, their attempts to find out the structure of his works, by the force of their wit and genius, will be vain.

  Thomas Reid

  Men, Genius, Bears

  Thomas Reid (1827). “Essays on the powers of the human mind: An essay on quantity. An analysis of Aristotl's logic”, p.23

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• You will seek for God in vain till you understand that God can't be seen as a "thing"; he needs a special way of looking - similar to that of little children whose sight is undistorted by prefabricated doctrines and beliefs.

  Anthony de Mello

  Children, Sight, Special

  "One Minute Nonsense". Book by Anthony de Mello, p. 8, 1992.

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• All our efforts to defeat poverty and pursue sustainable development will be in vain if environmental degradation and natural resource depletion continue unabated.

  Kofi Annan

  Effort, Environmental, Degradation

  "In larger freedom: towards development, security and human rights for all". Report for the United Nations sixtieth anniversary summit, 2005.

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• I looked about for some of my acquaintance, but in vain, for I saw not one person that I knew, which is very odd, for all the world seemed there.

  Fanny Burney

  World, Saws, Odd

  Frances Burney, Fanny Burney (2015). “Complete Works of Frances Burney (Delphi Classics)”, p.43, Delphi Classics

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• No, liberty is not made for us: we are too ignorant, too vain, too presumptious, too cowardly, too vile, too corrupt, too attached to rest and to pleasure, too much slaves to fortune to ever know the true price of liberty. We boast of being free! To show how much we have become slaves, it is enough just to cast a glance on the capital and examine the morals of its inhabitants.

  Jean-Paul Marat

  Ignorant, Being Free, Liberty

  L'Ami du peuple newspaper, No. 559, August 27, 1791.

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• The growth of New England was a result of the aggregate efforts of a busy multitude, each in his narrow circle toiling for himself, to gather competence or wealth. The expansion of New France was the achievement of a gigantic ambition striving to grasp a continent. It was a vain attempt.

  Francis Parkman

  Ambition, Circles, Achievement

  Francis Parkman (1871). “Pioneers of France in the New World”, p.10

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• When we love others, we naturally want to talk about them, we want to show them off, like emotional trophies. We invest them with a power to do to others what they do to us; a vain hope, as the lovers of others are rarely of much interest to us. But we listen in patience, as friends must, and as Isabel now did, refraining from comment, other than to encourage the release of the story and the attendant confession of human frailty and hope.

  Alexander McCall Smith

  Emotional, Stories, Want

  "Friends, Lovers, Chocolate". Book by Alexander McCall Smith, 2005.

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• A politics of vengeance is not politics. Revenge is a recklessness towards the future in a vain attempt to make the present abolish a suffering which is already past.

  Bernard Crick

  Revenge, Past, Suffering

  Bernard Crick (1993). “In Defense of Politics”, p.87, University of Chicago Press

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• I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. One of the great Catalan poets, Joan Maragall, wrote this famous poem in which he called Barcelona the great enchantress, or some kind of sorceress, and in which the city has this dark enticing presence that seduces and lures people. I think Barcelona has a lot of that.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Dark, Men, Thinking

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• All Empires fall, All ages die, All strife shall be in vain. All Kings go down, All hope must fail, But Tanelorn remains Our Tanelorn remains.

  Michael Moorcock

  Kings, Fall, Age

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• I am ever Thine. If Thou cast me out, who shall take me in? If Thou disregard me, who shall look on me? More canst Thou remit, than I commit; more canst Thou spare, than I offend. Let not hurtful pleasures overcome me; at the least let not any perverse habit overwhelm me; From evil and unlawful desires; From vain, hurtful, impure imaginations; from the illusions of evil spirits; from pollutions of soul and of body; Good Lord, deliver me.

  Lancelot Andrewes

  Evil, Imagination, Soul

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• We must rejoice when love is great, and pardon its excess, for love is the staff of life, and life without love is life in vain.

  Arthur Lynch

  Love, Life, Excess

  Arthur Lynch (1921). “Moods of Life: Popular Psychological Studies of Affairs of Every Day”

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• Vanity is easily forgiven, for we are all vain, and even as we laugh at the weakness of others we feel that their vanity has touched the responding chord of our own.

  Arthur Lynch

  Vanity, Laughing, Weakness

  Arthur Lynch (1921). “Moods of Life: Popular Psychological Studies of Affairs of Every Day”

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• If for just the time of a finger-snap a monk produces a thought of loving-kindness, develops it, gives attention to it, such a one is rightly called a monk. Not in vain does he meditate. He acts in accordance with the master's teaching, he follows his advice. How much more so if he cultivates it.

  Gautama Buddha

  Love, Kindness, Teaching

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• Ah, cruel 'tis to love, And cruel not to love, But cruelest of all To love and love in vain.

  Anacreon

  Love, And Love

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• Do you know that there's hardly anyone left of last year's Caucasian governments? I've tried to stop it, but in vain. Yet they can't all be Trotskyites and traitors.

  Lavrentiy Beria

  Government, Years, Lasts

  "The Kremlin and the People". Book by Walter Duranty, p. 126, 2007.

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• The enemies of the Soviet state calculate that the heavy loss we have borne will lead to disorder and confusion in our ranks. But their expectations are in vain: bitter disillusionment awaits them. He who is not blind sees that our party, during its difficult days, is closing its ranks still more closely, that it is united and unshakable.

  Lavrentiy Beria

  Party, Loss, Expectations

  "The Current Digest of the Soviet Press". Issued by the Joint Committee on Slavic Studies, p. 9, 1953.

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