Vanity Quotes - Page 3

• There are no grades of vanity; there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

  Mark Twain

  Humorous, Grades, Ability

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.494, Courier Corporation

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• Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

  Pope Francis

  Attitude, Church, Spirituality

  "'Careerism and vanity: Sins of the Church'". Vatican Insider Interview, www.lastampa.it. February 24, 2012.

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• Pride is a wound and vanity is the scab on it. One's life picks at the scab to open that wound again and again. Among men it seldom heals and often grows septic.

  Michael Ayrton

  Pride, Men, Scabs

  "The Maze Maker: A Novel".

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• When a man has no longer any conception of excellence above his own, his voyage is done, he is dead,--dead in trespasses and sin of blear-eyed vanity.

  Henry Ward Beecher

  Men, Excellence, Done

  Henry Ward Beecher (1855). “Star papers; or, Experiences of art and nature”, p.295

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• There is no folly of which a man who is not a fool cannot get rid except vanity; of this nothing cures a man except experience of its bad consequences, if indeed anything can cure it.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Fool, Cures

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• Vanity is so closely allied to virtue, and to love the fame of laudable actions approaches so near the love of laudable actions for their own sake, that these passions are more capable of mixture than any other kinds of affection; and it is almost impossible to have the latter without some degree of the former.

  David Hume

  Passion, Degrees, Mixtures

  David Hume (2016). “Essays Moral, Political, Literary: Revision of Great Book”, p.66, VM eBooks

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• Do not use your energy except for a cause more noble than yourself. Such a cause cannot be found except in Almighty God Himself: to preach the truth, to defend womanhood, to repel humiliation which your Creator has not imposed upon you, to help the oppressed. Anyone who uses his energy for the sake of the vanities of the world is like someone who exchanges gemstones for gravel. There is no nobility in anyone who lacks faith. The wise man knows that the only fitting price for his soul is a place in Paradise.

  Ibn Hazm

  Wise, Men, Soul

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• Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others.

  William Shakespeare

  Favors, Persons

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• Oh, Vanity of vanities! How wayward the decrees of Fate are; How very weak the very wise, How very small the very great are!

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Wise, Fate, Weak

  'Vanitas Vanitatum'

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• It's not vanity to feel you have a right to be beautiful. Women are taught to feel we're not good enough, that we must live up to someone else's standards. But my aim is to cherish myself as I am.

  Elle Macpherson

  Beautiful, Fashion, Not Good Enough

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• False glory is the rock of vanity; it seduces men to affect esteem by things which they indeed possess, but which are frivolous, and which for a man to value himself on would be a scandalous error.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Men, Errors, Rocks

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• Talking much is a sign of vanity, for the one who is lavish with words is cheap in deeds.

  Walter Raleigh

  Talking, Deeds, Talk Is Cheap

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• Shine out fair sun, till I have bought a glass, That I may see my shadow as I pass.

  William Shakespeare

  Glasses, Shining, Shadow

  William Shakespeare, Janis Lull (2009). “King Richard III”, p.81, Cambridge University Press

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• With regard to power, women don't have the vanity men have. They don't need to make power visible, they only want the power to give them the other things they want. Security. Food. Enjoyment. Revenge. Peace. They are rational, power-seeking planners, who think beyond the battle, beyond the victory celebrations. And because they have an inborn capacity to see weakness in their victims, they know instinctively when and how to strike. And when to stop. You can't learn that.

  Jo Nesbo

  Revenge, Thinking, Men

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• There is much money given to be laughed at, though the purchasers don't know it; witness A.'s fine horse, and B.'s fine house.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Horse, House, Given

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• There is no restraining men's tongues or pens when charged with a little vanity.

  George Washington

  Men, Littles, Tongue

  George Washington (1855). “Maxims of Washington: Political, Social, Moral, and Religious”, p.324

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• When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.

  Colley Cibber

  Real, People, Merit

  Colley Cibber (1830). “An Apology for the Life of Mr. Colley Cibber, Comedian”, p.27

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• Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.

  Francis Quarles

  Pride, Shame, Glory

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• Greater mischief happens often from folly, meanness, and vanity than from the greater sins of avarice and ambition.

  Edmund Burke

  Ambition, Sin, Mischief

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• There are women vain of advantages not connected with their persons, such as birth, rank, and fortune; it is difficult to feel less the dignity of the sex. The origin of all women may be called celestial, for their power is the offspring of the gifts of Nature; by yielding to pride and ambition they soon destroy the magic of their charms.

  Madame de Stael

  Sex, Ambition, Pride

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• Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

  Denis Diderot

  Doe, Action, Objects

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

  Joseph Joubert

  Would Be, Handsome, Next

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• Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.

  William Gilmore Simms

  Self, Littles, Claims

  William Gilmore Simms (1853). “Egeria: Or Voices of Thought and Counsel, for the Woods and Wayside”, p.18

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• Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.

  Washington Allston

  Men, Justice, Negative

  Washington Allston (1850). “Lectures on Art, and Poems”, p.173

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• Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when artfully and properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world.

  Sir Fulke Greville

  Medicine, Poison, World

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