Vanity Quotes - Page 30

• The doctrine of the utter vanity of life is a doctrine of despair, and life is hope.

  John Lancaster Spalding

  Despair, Doctrine, Life Is

  John Lancaster Spalding (1901). “Aphorisms and Reflections: Conduct, Culture and Religion”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets.

  Lewis H. Lapham

  Light, Fire, People

  Lewis H. Lapham (1989). “Money and Class in America: Notes and Observations on the Civil Religion”

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• When I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tomb of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow: when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the holy men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind.

  Joseph Addison

  Beautiful, Kings, Tombstone

  Joseph Addison, Sir Richard Steele (1853). “The Spectator: With a Biographical and Critical Preface, and Explanatory Notes ...”, p.83

  16 Copy quote

  Show source

• I Have often thought if the minds of men were laid open, we should see but little difference between that of the wise man and that of the fool. There are infinite reveries, numberless extravagances, and a perpetual train of vanities which pass through both. The great difference is, that the first knows how to pick and cull his thoughts for conversation, by suppressing some, and communicating others; whereas the other lets them all indifferently fly out in words.

  Joseph Addison

  Wise, Men, Differences

  Joseph Addison (1858). “Works, Including the Whole Contents of Bp. Hurd's Edition: Withletters and Other Pieces Not Found in Any Previous Collection; and Macaulay's Essay on His Life and Works”, p.530

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• The reputation of a Don Juan gives to a man the most dangerous power. Wise virgins resist it, but foolish virgins frequently yield to the desire to take a celebrated lover from a rival - even from a friend. This emotion is a complex one, mad up of vanity, respect for another woman's taste, and the need to establish self-assurance by winning a difficult victory. Don Juan chose his first mistresses; later he was chosen.

  Andre Maurois

  Wise, Winning, Men

  "The Art of Living". Book by Andre Maurois, 1939.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• The earth is not a mechanism but an organism, a being with its own life and its own reasons, where the support and sustenance of the human animal is incidental. If man in his newfound power and vanity persists in the attempt to remake the planet in his own image, he will succeed only in destroying himself - not the planet. The earth will survive our most ingenious folly.

  Edward Abbey

  Animal, Men, Support

  "The Journey Home: Some Words in Defense of the American West". Book by Edward Abbey ("Shadows from the Big Woods", p. 225), 1977.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Shall I speak truly what I now see below? The World is all a carkass, smoak and vanity, The shadow of a shadow, a play And in one word, just Nothing.

  Owen Feltham

  Play, Shadow, World

  4 Copy quote

• The joker in the deck of lesbian fidelity is female vanity: no woman of fifty is going to undress in front of a woman of twenty no matter how much she might lust for her.

  Florence King

  Lust, Twenties, Female

  "The Florence King Reader". Book by Florence King, 1995.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vanity is the most despotic and iniquitous of masters, and I can never be the slave of my own vices.

  George Sand

  Vices, Slave, Masters

  4 Copy quote

• Euler calculated the force of the wheels necessary to raise the water in a reservoir ... My mill was carried out geometrically and could not raise a drop of water fifty yards from the reservoir. Vanity of vanities! Vanity of geometry!

  Frederick The Great

  Water, Yards, Fifty

  Letters of Voltaire and Frederick the Great. Letter 221, 1927.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• To crave wealth and honor, to demand power, to pile up riches, to gather all those vanities which seem to make for pomp and empty display, that is our furious passion and our unbounded desire.On the other hand, we fear and abhor poverty, obscurity, and humility, and we seek to avoid them by all possible means.

  John Calvin

  Mean, Humility, Passion

  John Calvin (2004). “Golden Booklet of the True Christian Life”, p.41, Baker Books

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• No author, I think, is deserving of much censure for vanity if, taking down one of his ten-year-old books, he exclaims: "Great heavens, did I write as well as that then?" for the implication always is that one does not write any longer so well and few are so envious as to censure the complacencies of an extinct volcano.

  Ford Madox Ford

  Book, Writing, Thinking

  4 Copy quote

• Madness designates the equinox between the vanity of night's hallucinations and the non-being of light's judgments.

  Michel Foucault

  Night, Light, Hallucinations

  Michel Foucault (2013). “Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason”, p.111, Vintage

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• How heroic to be able to suppress one's vanity to the extent of confessing that the game is too hard.

  Alice James

  Games, Able, Heroic

  1889 On suicide. Diary entry, 5 Aug.

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• My friends are much more dangerous than my enemies. These latter - with infinite subtlety - spin webs to keep me out of places where I hate to go, - and tell stories of me to people whom it would be vanity and vexation to meet; - and they help me so much by their unconscious aid that I almost love them.

  Lafcadio Hearn

  Hate, People, Enemy

  Lafcadio Hearn (2008). “The Life and Letters of Lafcadio Hearn Including the Japanese Letters”, p.147, Wildside Press LLC

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Today, America poses a threat to peace and security in the world. Therefore, the slogan "Death to America" is no longer used only by our people. Today, you see throughout the world people setting fire to the effigy of the American president and chanting the slogan "Death to America." This is because of the American regime's exaggerated demands, its arrogance, its vanity, and its desire to control, and because it is a pawn in the hands of the Zionists.

  Ali Khamenei

  Hands, America, Fire

  "The 25 Issues that Shape American Politics: Debates, Differences, and Divisions". Book by Michael Kryzanek and Ann K. Karreth, 2017.

  100 Copy quote

  Show source

• Conceit is lovable and unconcealed ; vanity is supreme selfishness, usually hidden.

  Myrtle Reed

  Selfishness, Lovable, Conceit

  Myrtle Reed (2012). “The Spinster Book”, p.124, tredition

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• Being an MP feeds your vanity and starves your self- respect.

  Matthew Parris

  Self, Mps, Self Respect

  1994 InTheTimes, 9 Feb.

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• He who wants to educate himself in Chess must evade what is dead in Chess... the habit of playing with inferior opponents; the custom of avoiding difficult tasks; the weakness of uncritically taking over variations or rules discovered by others; the vanity which is self-sufficient; the incapacity for admitting mistakes; in brief, everything that leas to standstill or to anarchy.

  Emanuel Lasker

  Mistake, Self, Opponents

  "Lasker's Manual of Chess". Book by Emanuel Lasker, Published in New York: Dover, p. 338, 1960.

  65 Copy quote

  Show source

• The rationalism of the creative minds was tempered by abundant fantasies, and the supreme beauty of the monuments was probably spoiled by the circumambient vanities and ugliness; in a few cases the Greeks came as close to perfection as it was possible to do, yet they were human and imperfect.

  George Sarton

  Perfection, Creative, Greek

  George Sarton (1952). “Ancient Science Through the Golden Age of Greece”, p.10, Courier Corporation

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• A big success can be very confusing if it comes too early in your life. When you are young, you are more vulnerable to vanity. I was 36 when I wrote The Shadow of the Wind and the success of it was very gradual. If you have this kind of success straight off, I think there is a danger you can become an idiot, because you don't have a perspective. It hasn't changed me a lot. I fly first class now. But those things don't change you. If I am pretentious, I was before, I haven't changed. The only thing is, I am less anxious now.

  Carlos Ruiz Zafon

  Thinking, Wind, Class

  4 Copy quote

• Most frequently we make confidants from vanity, a love of talking, a wish to win the confidence of others, and to make an exchange of secrets.

  Francois Alexandre Frederic, duc de la Rochefoucauld-Liancourt

  Confidence, Winning, Talking

  14 Copy quote

• Graveyards remind us of the vanity of all human endeavour.

  Ivan Klíma

  Death, Endeavour, Graveyard

  Ivan Klíma, Paul Wilson (2006). “Waiting for the Dark, Waiting for the Light”, p.24, Grove Press

  5 Copy quote

  Show source

• Moral capitalism is possible; if not, its strictures are only a kind of misleading vanity, the rhetoric of a secular piety.

  Stephen Young

  Moral, Kind, Rhetoric

  Stephen Young (2003). “Moral Capitalism: Reconciling Private Interest with the Public Good”, p.9, Berrett-Koehler Publishers

  4 Copy quote

  Show source

• 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

  Laughing, Weakness, Vain

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

  4 Copy quote

  Show source