Vanity Quotes - Page 22

• Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.

  William Butler Yeats

  Years, Long, Done

  William Butler Yeats (1962). “Poems of William Butler Yeats”, p.498, Hayes Barton Press

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• It is a great mortification to the vanity of man, that his utmost art and industry can never equal the meanest of nature's productions, either for beauty or value. Art is only the under-workman, and is employed to give a few strokes of embellishment to those pieces, which come from the hand of the master.

  David Hume

  Art, Nature, Men

  David Hume (1825). “Essays and treatises on several subjects: essays, moral, political and literary”, p.131

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• My vanity is not remotely physical, it is cerebral. I suppose feeling self-conscious might be a form of vanity, though.

  Richard Griffiths

  Self, Feelings, Might

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• The ant's a centaur in his dragon world. Pull down thy vanity, it is not man Made courage, or made order, or made grace, Pull down thy vanity, I say pull down. Learn of the green world what can be thy place In scaled invention or true artistry, Pull down thy vanity, Paquin pull down! The green casque has outdone your elegance.

  Ezra Pound

  Courage, Learning, Men

  Cantos no. 81, l. 148 (1948)

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• There is a false modesty, which is vanity; a false glory, which is levity; a false grandeur, which is meanness; a false virtue, which is hypocrisy, and a false wisdom, which is prudery.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Hypocrisy, Modesty, Virtue

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• Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.

  Charles Simmons

  Use, Care, Riches

  Charles Simmons (1852). “Laconic Manual and Brief Remarker”, p.541

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• If vanity does not entirely overthrow the virtues, at least it makes them all totter.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Doe, Virtue, Ifs

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• Perhaps the seeds of false-refinement, immorality, and vanity, have ever been shed by the great. Weak, artificial beings, raised above the common wants and defections of their race, in a premature and unnatural manner, undermine the very foundation of virtue, and spread corruption through the whole mass of society!

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Leadership, Women, Race

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• In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity

  Robert Browning

  Heaven, Earth, Fool

  Robert Browning, David Ewbank (2007). “The Complete Works of Robert Browning: Volume XV, with Variant Readings and Annotations”, p.82, Ohio University Press

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• I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  May, Speech, Saws

  Benjamin Franklin (2006). “The Portable Benjamin Franklin”, p.11, Penguin

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• He [man] abuses equally other animals and his own species, the rest of whom live in famine, languish in misery, and work only to satisfy the immoderate appetite and the still more insatiable vanity of this human being who, destroying others by want, destroys himself by excess.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Animal, Men, Abuse

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• Vanity should never tempt a player to engage in a combat at the risk of loss of health. It is bad enough to lose without the additional annoyance of paying doctors' bills.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Loss, Player, Doctors

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• The idea of Kanye and vanity are like, synonymous. But I've put myself in a lot of places where a vain person wouldn't put themselves in. Like what's vanity about wearing a kilt?

  Kanye West

  Ideas, Kilts, Egomaniacs

  "Will Kid Cudi's Coachella crop top start a new hip-hop fashion trend?" by Nadeska Alexis, www.mtv.com. April 14, 2014.

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• There is nothing gutsier to me than a person announcing that their story is one that deserves to be told, especially if that person is a woman. As hard as we have worked and as far as we have come, there are still so many forces conspiring to tell women that our concerns are petty, our opinions aren’t needed, that we lack the gravitas necessary for our stories to matter. That personal writing by women is no more than an exercise in vanity and that we should appreciate this new world for women, sit down, and shut up.

  Lena Dunham

  Writing, Exercise, Appreciate

  Lena Dunham (2014). “Not That Kind of Girl: A Young Woman Tells You What She's "Learned"”, p.16, Random House

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• I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

  David Remnick

  Mistake, Thinking, Office

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• You feel you are hedged in; you dream of escape; but beware of mirages. Do not run or fly away in order to get free: rather dig in the narrow place which has been given you; you will find God there and everything. God does not float on your horizon, he sleeps in your substance. Vanity runs, love digs. If you fly away from yourself, your prison will run with you and will close in because of the wind of your flight; if you go deep down into yourself it will disappear in paradise.

  Gustave Thibon

  Running, Dream, Sleep

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• I think what kind of destroyed the franchise, in some ways, was ego and vanity. When that element of ego and vanity that's sitting there in the franchise right now gets pushed aside, I think the whole thing could be re-tooled. I think it's the type of franchise that has years in it, and has lots of legs.

  Joe Flanigan

  Thinking, Years, Ego

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• I appreciate people who are civil, whether they mean it or not. I think: Be civil. Do not cherish your opinion over my feelings. There's a vanity to candor that isn't really worth it. Be kind.

  Richard Greenberg

  Mean, Thinking, People

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• Praise will lead you to vanity, and blame will lead you to self-pity, and both are bad for writers.

  John Berryman

  Self, Blame, Pity

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• Egocentricity: The vanity that makes you wonder what people are thinking about you when they are really wondering what you are thinking about them.

  Evan Esar

  Thinking About You, People, Wonder

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• Bodybuilding is men on a stage in their underwear wearing brown paint showing other men their muscles. It is training for appearance only, and at the contest level requires a degree of vanity, narcissism, and self-absorption that I find distasteful and odd

  Mark Rippetoe

  Bodybuilding, Men, Self

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• Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride, friendship without envy, or beauty without vanity?

  Bantu Holomisa

  Horse, Pride, Men

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• Self restraint in speech, food, entertainment and vanity are the most essential fundamental of spiritual growth.

  Nouman Ali Khan

  Inspirational, Spiritual, Food

  FaceBook post by Nouman Ali Khan from Sep 26, 2013

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• There are some who wish to learn for no other reason than that they may be looked upon as learned, which is ridiculous vanity ... Others desire to learn that they may morally instruct others, that is love. And, lastly, there are some who wish to learn that they may be themselves edified; and that is prudence.

  Bernard of Clairvaux

  Wish, Desire, May

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• Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  Prayer, Odds

  Dietrich Bonhoeffer (2008). “Barcelona, Berlin, New York, 1928-1931”

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