Vanity Quotes - Page 9

• It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions. Heaven is by favor; if it were by merit your dog would go in and you would stay out. Of all the creatures ever made he (man) is the most detestable. Of the entire brood, he is the only one...that possesses malice. He is the only creature that inflicts pain for sport, knowing it to be pain. The fact that man knows right from wrong proves his intellectual superiority to the other creatures; but the fact that he can do wrong proves his moral inferiority to any creature that cannot.

  Mark Twain

  Sports, Dog, Pain

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• Vanity and narcissism — the compulsive need to be admired and praised — undermine one's courage, for one then fights on someone else's conviction rather than one's own.

  Rollo May

  Fighting, Needs, Narcissism

  Rollo May (2009). “Man's Search for Himself”, p.177, W. W. Norton & Company

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• Censorship is the height of vanity.

  Martha Graham

  Height, Censorship

  Martha Graham (1991). “Blood Memory”, Washington Square Press

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• The woman who appeals to a man's vanity may stimulate him, the woman who appeals to his heart may attract him, but it is the woman who appeals to his imagination who gets him.

  Helen Rowland

  Love, Strong Women, Heart

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• Even in a time of elephantine vanity and greed, one never has to look far to see the campfires of gentle people.

  Garrison Keillor

  People, Greed, Camping

  "We Are Still Married : Stories & Letters". Book by Garrison Keillor, "The Meaning of Life", 1989.

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• Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. The power of invention has been conferred by nature upon few, and the labour of learning those sciences which may, by mere labour, be obtained, is too great to be willingly endured; but every man can exert some judgment as he has upon the works of others; and he whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of critic.

  Samuel Johnson

  Men, Names, Support

  Samuel Johnson (1836). “The Works of Samuel Johnson, LL.: D., with an Essay on His Life and Genius”, p.413

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• [The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeurat another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.

  Calvin Coolidge

  Attitude, Men, Political

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• I'm a joker who has understood his epoch and has extracted all he possibly could from the stupidity, greed and vanity of his contemporaries.

  Pablo Picasso

  Art, Stupidity, Greed

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• There was about all the Romans a heroic tone peculiar to ancient life. Their virtues were great and noble, and these virtues madethem great and noble. They possessed a natural majesty that was not put on and taken off at pleasure, as was that of certain eastern monarchs when they put on or took off their garments of Tyrian dye. It is hoped that this is not wholly lost from the world, although the sense of earthly vanity inculcated by Christianity may have swallowed it up in humility.

  Herman Melville

  Taken, Humility, Greatness

  Herman Melville (2001). “Tales, Poems, and Other Writings”

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• After I have said what is required by my vanity and my morality, I may find a moment for Truth.

  Mason Cooley

  Truth, May, Morality

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• [On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.

  Blaise Pascal

  Beauty, Noses, Earth

  Blaise Pascal (1962). “Pensées”

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• Vanity is so anchored in the heart of man that a soldier, a soldier's servant, a cook, a porter brags and wishes to have his admirers. Even philosophers wish for them. Those who write against vanity want to have the glory of having written well; and those who read it desire the glory of having read it. I who write this have perhaps this desire, and perhaps those who will read it.

  Blaise Pascal

  Philosophical, Writing, Heart

  Blaise Pascal (2013). “Pensées”, p.46, Courier Corporation

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• We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.

  Blaise Pascal

  Death, Real, Years

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• We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.

  Blaise Pascal

  Real, Hypocrisy, Shining

  Blaise Pascal (1910). “Thoughts, Letters, and Minor Works”

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• I have seldom seen much ostentation and much learning met together.

  Joseph Hall

  Together, Mets, Ostentation

  Joseph Hall (1837). “The Works of Joseph Hall: Devotional works; Miscellaneous theology”, p.10

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• A good stylist should have narcissistic enjoyment as he works. He must be able to objectivize his work to such an extent that he catches himself feeling envious and has to jog his memory to find that he is himself the creator. In short, he must display that highest degree of objectivity which the world calls vanity.

  Karl Kraus

  Memories, Objectivity, Should Have

  Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & one-and-a-half truths: selected aphorisms”

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• Because one has little fear of shocking vanity in Italy, people adopt an intimate tone very quickly and discuss personal things.

  Stendhal

  People, Littles, Tone

  "La Chartreuse de Parme (The Charterhouse of Parma)". Book by Stendhal (Chapter 6), 1839.

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• I have no other pictures of the world apart from those which express evanescence, and callousness, vanity and anger, emptiness, orhideous useless hate. Everything has merely confirmed what I had seen and understood in my childhood: futile and sordid fits of rage, cries suddenly blanketed by the silence, shadows swallowed up for ever by the night.

  Eugene Ionesco

  Hate, Night, Silence

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• Writing a book I have found to be like building a house. A man forms a plan, and collects materials. He thinks he has enough to raise a large and stately edifice; but after he has arranged, compacted and polished, his work turns out to be a very small performance. The authour however like the builder, knows how much labour his work has cost him; and therefore estimates it at a higher rate than other people think it deserves

  James Boswell

  Book, Writing, Men

  James Boswell (2002). “The Journal of a Tour to Corsica and Memoirs of Pascal Paoli”

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• I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.

  James Boswell

  Ambition, Manners, Decorum

  James Boswell (2001). “Boswell's Edinburgh Journals 1767-1786”, Mercat Press Books

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• When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.

  Hannah More

  Contentment, Emulation, Looks

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• The a priori method is distinguished for its comfortable conclusions. It is the nature of the process to adopt whatever belief weare inclined to, and there are certain flatteries to the vanity of man which we all believe by nature, until we are awakened from our pleasing dream by rough facts.

  Charles Sanders Peirce

  Dream, Believe, Men

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• The things which can make life enjoyable remain the same. They are, now as before, reading, music, fine arts, travel, the enjoyment of nature, sports, fashion, social vanity (knightly orders, honorary offices, gatherings) and the intoxication of the senses.

  Johan Huizinga

  Music, Sports, Fashion

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• Pride is a fault that great men blush not to own: it is the ennobled offspring of self-love; though, it must be confessed, grave and pompous vanity, Iike a fat plebeian in a rove of office, does very often assume its name.

  Joanna Baillie

  Pride, Men, Names

  Joanna Baillie (1851). “The Dramatic and Poetical Works of Joanna Baillie ; Complete in One Volume”, p.209

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• Gold is the gift of vanity and common pride, but flowers are the gift of love and friendship.

  Franz Grillparzer

  Love, Friendship, Flower

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