Vain Quotes - Page 37

• An appeal to a goodness which is not in him is, to a vain and sensitive soul, a stinging insult.

  Frederick Rolfe

  Soul, Insult, Sensitive

  "Hadrian the Seventh" by Frederick Rolfe, Penguin Modern Classics edition, Harmondsworth, (p. 296), 1963.

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• Vanity is apt to inspire contempt, but that becomes immediately tempered by a gentler and more gracious feeling; for the vain man desires to win our approbation, and in this way he flatters us.

  Arthur Alfred Lynch

  Winning, Men, Vanity

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• True religion extends alike to the intellect and the heart. Intellect is in vain if it lead not to emotion, and emotion is vain if not enlightened by intellect; and both are vain if not guided by truth and leading to duty.

  Tryon Edwards

  Heart, Emotion, Enlightened

  Tryon Edwards (2015). “The New Dictionary of Thoughts”, p.1145, Ravenio Books

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• What labor and pains worldlings take to obtain the vain things of this life-to obtain the poor things of this world, which are but shadows and dreams, and mere nothings!

  Thomas Brooks

  Dream, Pain, Shadow

  Thomas Brooks “Heaven On Earth”, Lulu.com

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• Consultation and compliance can conduce little to the perfection of any literary performance; for whoever is so doubtful of his own abilities as to encourage the remarks of others, will find himself every day embarrassed with new difficulties, and will harass his mind, in vain, with the hopeless labour of uniting heterogeneous ideas, digesting independent hints, and collecting into one point the several rays of borrowed light, emitted often with contrary directions.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Independent, Light

  Samuel Johnson (2009). “Samuel Johnson: Selected Writings”, p.183, Harvard University Press

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• Works of imagination excel by their allurement and delight; by their power of attracting and detaining the attention. That book is good in vain which the reader throws away. He only is the master who keeps the mind in pleasing captivity; whose pages are perused with eagerness, and in hope of new pleasure are perused again; and whose conclusion is perceived with an eye of sorrow, such as the traveller casts upon departing day.

  Samuel Johnson

  Book, Writing, Eye

  Samuel Johnson (1854). “Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets: With Critical Observations on Their Works”, p.375

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• Many causes may vitiate a writer's judgement of his own works. On that which has cost him much labour he sets a high value, because he is unwilling to think that he has been diligent in vain: what has been produced without toilsome efforts is considered with delight as a proof of vigorous faculties and fertile invention; and the last work, whatever it be, has necessarily most of the grace of novelty.

  Samuel Johnson

  Writing, Thinking, Effort

  Samuel Johnson (1787). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.D.: Together with His Life, and Notes on His Lives of the Poets, by Sir John Hawkins, Knt. In Eleven Volumes ...”, p.136

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• Our faith in democracy, personal freedoms and human 'rights', and the other comforting prescriptions of the humanist liberal credo stem from the supremacy of maritime over territorial power. Pragmatists may deplore this as crude determinism, as another vain attempt to construct a general theory of history. They should reflect on the sort of political philosophy and structures we might now adhere to had the Habsburgs, Bourbons, Bonaparte, Hitler, Stalin or his heirs prevailed in the titanic world struggles of the past four centuries.

  Peter Padfield

  Philosophy, Struggle, Past

  Peter Padfield (2000). “Maritime Supremacy & the Opening of the Western Mind: Naval Campaigns that Shaped the Modern World”, Overlook Books

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• Rather than providing him with economic opportunity, the Act of that name seems designed to make the poor man do penance all his life for the sin of being born into a non-capital-owning family... One searches it in vain for measure designed to provide economic opportunity to the capital owner. But nobody proposes to educate, train, or rehabilitate either him or his children, even when their "unemployment" is notorious.

  Louis O. Kelso

  Wisdom, Children, Opportunity

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• The skeptic has no illusions about life, nor a vain belief in the promise of immortality. Since this life here and now is all we can know, our most reasonable option is to live it fully.

  Paul Kurtz

  Promise, Atheism, Belief

  Paul Kurtz (1986). “The Transcendental Temptation: A Critique of Religion and the Paranormal”

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• Assuredly whatsoever things are fabled to exist in deep Acheron, these all exist in this life. There is no wretched Tantalus, fearing the great rock that hangs over him in the air and frozen with vain terror. Rather, it is in this life that fear of the gods oppresses mortals without cause, and the rock they fear is any that chance may bring.

  Lucretius

  Rocks, Air, Atheism

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• Long time men lay oppress'd with slavish fear Religion's tyranny did domineer ... At length a mighty one of Greece began To assert the natural liberty of man, By senseless terrors and vain fancies let To slavery. Straight the conquered phantoms fled.

  Lucretius

  Men, Long, Atheism

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• Torrents of blood have been spilt in the world in vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences in religious opinions.

  James Madison

  Religious, Blood, Differences

  James Madison, Virginia. General assembly, 1785 (1828). “A memorial and remonstrance, on the religious rights of man; written in 1784-5, at the request of the religious society of Baptists in Virginia. ...”, p.9

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• Our soldiers did not go to some foreign country and risk their lives in vain and defend our Constitution so that decades later you can tell me it's a living document ever changing and is open to interpretation. The guys who wrote it were light years ahead of anyone today, and they meant what they said - now leave the document alone, or there's going to be trouble.

  Ted Nugent

  Country, Light, Years

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• I was used to being disliked as a kid. Not that I didn't deserve it: I was a pretty sad and unappealing creature, and still am, I guess. It's sort of simplistic to think that one tries to make stuff that accounts for one's repulsiveness as a person, but there's some truth to it. So, when I read something unfavorable, I always take it deeply personally. It's as if my efforts have been in vain, and I should just quit.

  Chris Ware

  Kids, Thinking, Effort

  Source: www.avclub.com

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• Look what a little vain dust we are!

  Joseph Addison

  Dust, Looks, Littles

  Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith, William Makepeace Thackeray (1906). “English Humorists of the Eighteenth Century: Sir Richard Steele, Joseph Addison, Laurence Sterne, Oliver Goldsmith”

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• The ways of heaven are dark and intricate,
  Puzzled in mazes, and perplex'd with errors;
  Our understanding traces them in vain,
  Lost and bewilder'd in the fruitless search;
  Nor sees with how much art the windings run,
  Nor where the regular confusion ends.

  Joseph Addison

  Running, Art, Dark

  Joseph Addison (1868). “The Works of Joseph Addison”, p.481

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• Great people and champions are special gifts of God, whom He gives and preserves; they do their work, and achieve great actions, not with vain imaginations, or cold and sleepy cogitations, but by motion of God.

  Martin Luther

  Greatness, People, Giving

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• Excess in apparel is another costly folly. The very trimming of the vain world would clothe all the naked ones.

  William Penn

  Excess, World, Naked

  Benjamin Franklin, William Penn (2012). “Franklin's Way to Wealth and Penn's Maxims”, p.28, Courier Corporation

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• The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Vanity, Triumph

  William Hazlitt (1871). “The Round Table. A collection of Essays ... By W. H. and Leigh Hunt”, p.473

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• Vain-glorious man, when fluttering wind does blow
  In his light wing's, is lifted up to sky;
  The scorn of-knighthood and true chivalry.
  To think, without desert of gentle deed
  And noble worth, to be advanced high,
  Such praise is shame, but honour, virtue's meed,
  Doth bear the fairest flower in honourable seed.

  Edmund Spenser

  Flower, Blow, Men

  Edmund Spenser (1965). “Books I and II of the Faerie queene: the mutability cantos, and selections from the minor poetry”

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• Their origin is commonly unknown; for the practice often continues when the cause has ceased, and concerning superstitious ceremonies it is in vain to conjecture; for what reason did not dictate, reason cannot explain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Practice, Causes, Reason

  Samuel Johnson (1977). “Selected Poetry and Prose”, p.150, Univ of California Press

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• Of him that hopes to be forgiven it is indispensably required that he forgive. It is, therefore, superfluous to urge any other motive. On this great duty eternity is suspended, and to him that refuses to practise it, the throne of mercy is inaccessible, and the Saviour of the world has been born in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Forgiveness, Forgiving, Thrones

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “Johnsoniana; or supplement to Boswell; being Anecdotes and sayings of Dr. Johnson, etc”, p.385

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• We are to take no counsel with flesh and blood; give ear to no vain cavils, vain sorrows and wishes; to know that we know nothing, that the worst and cruelest to our eyes is not what it seems, that we have to receive whatsoever befalls us as sent from God above, and say, "It is good and wise,--God is great! Though He slay me, yet I trust in Him." Islam means, in its way, denial of self. This is yet the highest wisdom that heaven has revealed to our earth.

  Thomas Carlyle

  Wise, Mean, Eye

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• These are the effects of doting age,--vain doubts and idle cares and over caution.

  John Dryden

  Doubt, Age, Care

  John Dryden (1808). “The works of John Dryden now first collected ...”, p.426

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