Vanity Quotes - Page 6

• Virtue would go far if vanity did not keep it company.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Virtue, Company, Ifs

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• Vanity is a vital aid to nature: completely and absolutely necessary to life. It is one of nature's ways to bind you to the earth.

  Elizabeth Smart

  Earth, Way, Aids

  Elizabeth Smart, Alice Van Wart (1991). “Necessary secrets: the journals of Elizabeth Smart”, Grafton Books

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• What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own.

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Hurt, It Hurts, Insufferable

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

  William Hazlitt

  Men, Triumph, Merit

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

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• I really know nothing more criminal, more mean, and more ridiculous than lying. It is the production either of malice, cowardice, or vanity; and generally misses of its aim in every one of these views; for lies are always detected, sooner or later.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Lying, Mean, Views

  Lord Philip Dormer Stanhope Chesterfield, Philip Dormer Stanhope Earl of Chesterfield (1855). “The Works of Lord Chesterfield: Including His Letters to His Son, Etc : to which is Prefixed, an Original Life of the Author”, p.156

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• Vanity is a strong temptation to lying; it makes people magnify their merit, over flourish their family, and tell strange stories of their interest and acquaintance.

  Jeremy Collier

  Strong, Lying, People

  Jeremy COLLIER (the Nonjuror.), J. E. (1838). “Pearls of Great Price: or, Maxims, reflections, characters and thoughts, on miscellaneous subjects ... Selected from the works of the Rev. Jeremy Collier by the editor of “Sir William Jones's Discourses,” etc. [The editor's preface signed: J. E., i.e. James Elmes.]”, p.122

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• The vanity extended most of all to his library, arguably the real love of Cicero's life. It is difficult to name anything in which he took more pleasure, aside possibly evasion of the sumptuary laws. Cicero liked to believe himself wealthy. He prided himself on his books. He needed no further reason to dislike Cleopatra: intelligent women who had better libraries than he did offended him on three counts.

  Stacy Schiff

  Real, Believe, Book

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• Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity.

  Sophie Swetchine

  Enemy, Dignity, Constant

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• Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents

  Albert Camus

  Sacrifice, Civilization, Mind

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• The offspring of riches: Pride, vanity, ostentation, arrogance, tyranny

  Mark Twain

  Pride, Arrogance, Riches

  Mark Twain (2012). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.406, Courier Corporation

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• I shall stick to our vow: never, never under any circumstances, to say anything unbecoming of the other...The trouble, of course, is that most successful men are prone to some form of vanity. There comes a stage in their lives when they consider it permissible to be egotistic and to brag to the public at large about their unique achievements.

  Nelson Mandela

  Successful, Unique, Men

  Nelson Mandela (2011). “Conversations With Myself”, p.28, Pan Macmillan

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• Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

  George Eliot

  Love, Literature, Ease

  George Eliot (2016). “Daniel Deronda”, p.107, Open Road Media

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• There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

  Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton

  Political, Skins, Agonizing

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• Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

  Iris Murdoch

  Hurt, Revenge, People

  Iris Murdoch (2008). “The Philosopher's Pupil”, p.81, Random House

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• Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

  Joseph Conrad

  Memories, Humility, Play

  Joseph Conrad (2005). “Selected Works of Joseph Conrad”, p.225, Wordsworth Editions

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• To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people.

  Max Beerbohm

  Mean, Men, People

  Max Beerbohm (2015). “The Prince of Minor Writers: The Selected Essays of Max Beerbohm”, p.94, New York Review of Books

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• It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish.

  Luc de Clapiers

  Men, Wish, Difficult

  "Reflections and Maxims". Book by Luc de Clapiers (No. 67), 1746.

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• Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.

  Aesop

  Inspirational, Office, Fool

  Aesop, Thomas James (1872). “Aesop's Fables: A New Version, Chiefly from Original Sources”, p.109

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• No man thinks there is much ado about nothing when the ado is about himself.

  Anthony Trollope

  Men, Thinking, Literature

  'The Bertrams' (1859) ch. 27

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• Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Men, Underestimate, Overestimate

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• If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by vanity only that they appreciate their own worth. Without this kind of vanity they would not be great. And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing.

  Yousuf Karsh

  Mean, Men, Appreciate

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• And not a vanity is given in vain.

  Alexander Pope

  Vain, Given

  Alexander Pope, George Croly (1854). “The Poetical Works of Alexander Pope; with a Memoir of the Author, Notes, and Critical Notices on Each Poem. By the Rev. George Croly ... New Edition. [With a Portrait.]”, p.268

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• Vanity is my favourite sin.

  Al Pacino

  Sin, Favourite

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• One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Fear, Mean, Pride

  Friedrich Nietzsche “Delphi Complete Works of Friedrich Nietzsche (Illustrated): Friedrich Nietzsche”, Delphi Classics

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• I used to think getting old was about vanity but actually it's about losing people you love.

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Thinking, Wrinkles, People

  1989 In The Guardian,18 Aug.

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