Vain Quotes - Page 39

• It is in vain to look for the elevation of woman so long as she is degraded in marriage.

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton

  Marriage, Long, Looks

  Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan Brownell Anthony, Ann Dexter Gordon (1997). “The Selected Papers of Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony: In the school of anti-slavery, 1840 to 1866”, p.194, Rutgers University Press

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• The source of each accordant strain
  Lies deeper than the Poet's brain.
  First from the people's heart must spring
  The passions which he learns to sing;
  They are the wind, the harp is he,
  To voice their fitful melody,--
  The language of their varying fate,
  Their pride, grief, love, ambition, hate,--
  The talisman which holds inwrought
  The touchstone of the listener's thought;
  That penetrates each vain disguise,
  And brings his secret to his eyes.

  Bayard Taylor

  Lying, Hate, Spring

  Bayard Taylor (1866). “The Poems”, p.111

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• Right there is the usefulness of migraine, there in that imposed yoga, the concentration on the pain. For when the pain recedes, ten or twelve hours later, everything goes with it, all the hidden resentments, all the vain anxieties. The migraine has acted as a circuit breaker, and the fuses have emerged intact. There is a pleasant convalescent euphoria.

  Joan Didion

  Pain, Yoga, Anxiety

  Joan Didion (2013). “The White Album”, p.115, Zola Books

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• Fortunes are made, if I the facts may state--
  Though poor myself, I know the fortunate:
  First, there's a knowledge of the way from whence
  Good fortune comes--and this is sterling sense:
  Then perseverance, never to decline
  The chase of riches till the prey is thine;
  And firmness never to be drawn away
  By any passion from that noble prey--
  By love, ambition, study, travel, fame,
  Or the vain hope that lives upon a name.

  George Crabbe

  Perseverance, Ambition, Passion

  George Crabbe (1839). “The Poetical Works of Crabbe, Heber, and Pollok: Complete in One Volume”, p.364

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• Men famed for wit, of dangerous talents vain,
  Treat those of common parts with proud disdain;
  The powers that wisdom would, improving, hide,
  They blaze abroad, with inconsid'rate pride;
  While yet but mere probationers for fame,
  They seize the honor they should then disclaim:
  Honor so hurried to the light must fade,
  The lasting laurels nourish in the shade.

  George Crabbe

  Pride, Men, Light

  George Crabbe (1839). “The Poetical Works of Crabbe, Heber, and Pollok: Complete in One Volume”, p.158

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• Drawn by conceit from reason's plan
  How vain is that poor creature man;
  How pleas'd in ev'ry paltry elf
  To grate about that thing himself.

  Charles Churchill

  Men, Reason, Poor

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• Tis mighty easy o'er a glass of wine
  On vain refinements vainly to refine,
  To laugh at poverty in plenty's reign,
  To boast of apathy when out of pain,
  And in each sentence, worthy of the schools,
  Varnish'd with sophistry, to deal out rules
  Most fit for practice, but for one poor fault
  That into practice they can ne'er be brought.

  Charles Churchill

  Pain, Wine, School

  Charles Churchill (1855). “The Poetical Works of Charles Churchill: With Memoir, Critical Dissertation, and Explanatory Notes”, p.377

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• O that one unguarded moment! / Were it mine to live again, / All the strength of its temptation / Would appeal to me in vain.

  Phoebe Cary

  Regret, Temptation, Moments

  Phoebe Cary (1854). “Poems and Parodies”, p.58

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• It gives me no joy to be praised at the expense of a better artist, by someone who does not know the difference or who thinks me too vain to be aware of it myself.

  Mary Renault

  Humility, Artist, Thinking

  Mary Renault (1974). “The Mask of Apollo”

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• Either fraternity is spontaneous, or it does not exist. To decree it is to annihilate it. The law can indeed force men to remain just; in vain would it try to force them to be self-sacrificing.

  Frederic Bastiat

  Sacrifice, Men, Self

  "Justice and Fraternity". Journal des Économistes, June 15, 1848.

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• A Finnan haddock has a relish of a peculiar and delicate flavour, inimitable on any other coast than that of Aberdeenshire. Some of our Edinburgh philosophers tried to produce their equal in vain. I was one of a party at dinner where the philosophical haddocks were placed in competition with the genuine Finnan fish. These were served round without distinguishing whence they came; but only one gentleman out of twelve present espoused the cause of philosophy.

  Walter Scott

  Philosophy, Philosophical, Party

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• When evening quickens in the street, comes a pause in the day's occupation that is known as the cocktail hour. It marks the lifeward turn. The heart wakens from coma and its dyspnea ends. Its strengthening pulse is to cross over into campground, to believe that the world has not been altogether lost or, if lost, then not altogether in vain.

  Bernard DeVoto

  Believe, Food, Heart

  1951 The Hour.

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• Is it not an amazing thing, that men shall attempt to investigate the mystery of the redemption, when, at the same time that it is propounded to us as an article of faith solely, we are told that "the very angels have desired to pry into it in vain"?

  Laurence Sterne

  Angel, Men, Redemption

  Laurence Sterne (1805). “The Works of Laurence Sterne, A. M.: A sentimental journey through France and Italy. The Koran: or, The life, character and sentiments of Tria Juncta in Uno. A political romance”, p.379

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• It is vain to trust in wrong; it is like erecting a building upon a frail foundation, and which will directly be sure to topple over.

  Hosea Ballou

  Foundation, Building, Frail

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• It would be next to impossible to discover a handsome woman who was not also a vain woman.

  Joseph Joubert

  Vanity, Would Be, Handsome

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• Western dance begins with its feet firmly planted on the ground whereas Butoh begins with a dance wherein the dancer tries in vain to find his feet

  Tatsumi Hijikata

  Feet, Dancer, Trying

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• The folly of men has enhanced the value of gold and silver because of their scarcity; whereas, on the contrary, it is their opinion that Nature, as an indulgent parent, has freely given us all the best things in great abundance, such as water and earth, but has laid up and hid from us the things that are vain and useless.

  Thomas More

  Men, Water, Parent

  Sir Thomas More (2009). “Utopia: On the Best State of a Republic and on the New Island of Utopia”, p.93, The Floating Press

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• Love, so many People use your Name in vain.

  Musiq

  People

  Song: Love, Album: Aijuswanaseing, 2000

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• Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.

  Marcus Aurelius

  Reason, Checks, Quench

  "Meditations" by Marcus Aurelius, Book IX, (7), (c. 161 - 180 AD).

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• I am not prone to weeping as our sex commonly are; the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities;
  but I have that honorable grief lodged here which burns worse than tears drown.

  William Shakespeare

  Sex, Women, Grief

  William Shakespeare, John Pitcher (2010). “The Winter's Tale: Third Series”, p.194, A&C Black

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• You don't love people for what they can give you. You don't love them because of what they do for you or how good you make them look. Love is blind, love does not boast, love is not vain.

  Shelly Crane

  Love Is, People, Giving

  Shelly Crane (2011). “Significance: A Significance Novel”, p.13, Kiss Me Publications, LLC

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• I try not to be but Im super-neurotic about diet. Im neurotic about trying not to be neurotic! Im like every other girl. I have to try really hard my whole life to try to be fit. And Im super-vain. And I want to wear cute clothes.

  Gwen Stefani

  Cute, Girl, Clothes

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• How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not - have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.

  Jane Welsh Carlyle

  Ideas, Longing, Goodness

  Jane Welsh Carlyle, Thomas Carlyle (1903). “New Letters and Memorials”

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• I have a theory that evolutionary biologists are more vain than particle physicists.

  Robin Ince

  Theory, Physicist, Biologist

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• Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits-the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.

  Theodore Roosevelt

  Years, Intellectual, Poverty

  Theodore Roosevelt (1910). “Works: The strenuous life”

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