Vain Quotes - Page 11

• Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain.

  John Calvin

  Useless

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• Ere many generations pass, our machinery will be driven by a power obtainable at any point of the universe. This idea is not novel... We find it in the delightful myth of Antaeus, who derives power from the earth; we find it among the subtle speculations of one of your splendid... Throughout space there is energy. Is this energy static or kinetic! If static our hopes are in vain; if kinetic - and this we know it is, for certain - then it is a mere question of time when men will succeed in attaching their machinery to the very wheelwork of nature.

  Nikola Tesla

  Men, Ideas, Space

  "Experiments With Alternate Currents Of High Potential And High Frequency". Nikola Tesla's Address to the Institution of Electrical Engineers, February 1892.

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• Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history.

  Ralph Adams Cram

  Christian, Years, Democracy

  RALPH ADAMS CRAM (1922). “TOWARDS THE GREAT PEACE”

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• A Christian man is on his guard with respect to those who philosophize according to the elements of this world, not according to God, by Whom the world itself was made; for he is warned by the precept of the apostle and faithfully hears what has been said, 'Beware that no one deceive you through philosophy and vain deceit, according to the elements of the world'

  Saint Augustine

  Christian, Philosophy, Men

  Saint Augustine of Hippo, Catholic Way Publishing (2015). “The City of God”, p.344, Catholic Way Publishing

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• Words are as recalcitrant as circus animals, and the unskilled trainer can crack his whip at them in vain.

  Gerald Brenan

  Animal, Circus, Cracks

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• Let no man deceive you with vain words or vain hopes or false notions of a slight and sudden repentance. As if heaven were a hospital founded on purpose to receive all sick and maimed persons that, when they can live no longer to the lusts of the flesh and the sinful pleasures of this world, can but put up a cold and formal petition to be admitted there. No, no, as sure as God is true, they shall never see the Kingdom of God who, instead of seeking it in the first place, make it their last refuge and retreat.

  John Tillotson

  Hope, Men, Sick

  John Tillotson (1696). “The Works of the Most Reverend Dr. John Tillotson ...: Containing Fifty Four Sermons and Discourses, on Several Occasions. Together with The Rule of Faith”, p.663

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• Call it not vain: they do not err Who say that when the poet dies Mute Nature mourns her worshipper, And celebrates his obsequies.

  Walter Scott

  Nature, Poet, Celebrate

  Walter Scott, Sir Walter Scott (1841). “The Poetical Works of Sir Walter Scott, Bart”, p.30

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• Sometimes I'm haunted by the thought that we have only one life and that we live it provisionally, waiting in vain for the day when real life will begin. And so life passes by.

  Ignazio Silone

  Real, Waiting, Sometimes

  "The Abruzzo Trilogy".

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• Fear is the dream killer, the silent voice that pushes us to lose our passion in a vain attempt to seek safety.

  Seth Godin

  Dream, Passion, Voice

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• A glamorous life is quite different to a life of luxury. I don’t need luxury. For years, I was practically broke but I was still very vain and glamorous. And I still am.

  Lady Gaga

  Years, Luxury, Different

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• Not to be vain, but I have nice long legs, so I like to accentuate them. Find what part of your body you love most - it can be your arms, your chest, your legs - and emphasize that.

  Khloe Kardashian

  Nice, Long, Body

  "Khloe Kardashian On How She Plans To Spend Valentine’s Day With Lamar Odom". Interview with Sarah St. Lifer, www.huffingtonpost.com. February 14, 2012.

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• The whole point of being an actor is to get satisfaction out of a role -- unless you're just vain about celebrity. You're always looking for the one thing that will surprise you.

  Jonny Lee Miller

  Roles, Actors, Satisfaction

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• Worthless is the charity of the man who bestows it unwillingly, because material charity is not his, but God's gift, while only the disposition of the heart belongs to the man. This is why many charities prove almost worthless, for they were bestowed unwillingly, grudgingly, without respect for the person of our neighbor. So also the hospitality of many persons proves worthless because of their hypocritical vain-glorious behavior to their guests. Let us offer our sacrifices upon the altar of love to our neighbor, with heart-felt affection: 'for God loves a cheerful giver'

  John of Kronstadt

  Christian, Heart, Sacrifice

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• This, then, is the truth of the discourse of universal human rights: the Wall separating those covered by the umbrella of Human Rights and those excluded from its protective cover. Any reference to universal human rights as an 'unfinished project' to be gradually extended to all people is here a vain ideological chimera - and, faced with this prospect, do we, in the West, have any right to condemn the excluded when they use any means, inclusive of terror, to fight their exclusion?

  Slavoj Žižek

  Wall, Mean, Fighting

  Slavoj Žižek (2002). “Welcome to the Desert of the Real!: Five Essays on September 11 and Related Dates”, p.150, Verso

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• In vain do we seek to awaken our churches to zeal in evangelism as a separate thing. To be genuine it must flow from love to Christ. It is when a sense of personal communion with the Son of God is highest that we shall be most fit for missionary work, either ourselves or to stir up others.

  Archibald Alexander

  Son, Church, Missionary

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• I am astonished about those people who are ordered to prepare their provisions, then the start of the journey is announced, however they remain unmindful in their vain discussions and fruitless deeds.

  Hasan of Basra

  Wisdom, Islamic, Journey

  "The Life of This World Is a Transient Shade". Book by Abdul Malik Al-Qasim, January 1, 1999.

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• Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.

  Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.

  Brother, Equality, Men

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• If I can, by a lucky chance, in these uneasy days, rub out one wrinkle from the brow of care, or beguile the heavy heart of one moment of sadness; if I can, how and then, prompt a happier view of human nature, and make my reader more in good humor with his fellow-beings and himself, surely, I shall not have written in vain.

  Washington Irving

  Inspirational Life, Sadness, Heart

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• Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.

  William Butler Yeats

  Blood, Discipline, Tolerance

  Thomas Stearns Eliot, William Butler Yeats (2001). “YER”

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• One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it...If we limit our vision to the real world, we will forever be fighting on the minus side of things, working only too make our photographs equal to what we see out there, but no better.

  Galen Rowell

  Photography, Real, Mistake

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• Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Girl, Passion, Heart

  James Boswell, Samuel Johnson (1859). “The Life of Samuel Johnson, LL. D.: Including a Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides”, p.256

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• In working well, if travail you sustain, Into the wind shall lightly pass the pain; But of the deed the glory shall remain, And cause your name with worthy wights to reign. In working wrong, if pleasure you attain, The pleasure soon shall fade, and void as vain; But of the deed throughout the life the shame Endures, defacing you with foul defame.

  Nicholas Grimald

  Life, Pain, Wind

  Henry Howard Earl of Surrey, Thomas Sackville Earl of Dorset, Nicholas Grimald, Thomas Vaux Baron Vaux (1854). “Poetical Works of Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey: Minor Contemporaneous Poets, and Thomas Sackville, Lord Buckhurst”, p.210

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• Or hast thou known the world so long in vain?

  John Dryden

  Birthday, Long, World

  Juvenal, John Dryden, Nahum Tate, Persius, Richard Duke (1713). “The Satires of Decimus Junius Juvenalis: and of Aulus Persius Flaccus”, p.210

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• Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain.

  Aristotle

  Nature, Incomplete

  Politics bk. 1, 1256b

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• If you pray for a thing, but have fear as you pray, that you may not receive it, or that your prayer will not be acted upon by Infinite Intelligence, your prayer will have been in vain.

  Napoleon Hill

  Prayer, Infinite Intelligence, May

  Napoleon Hill, Wallace D. Wattles (2012). “Get Rich Collection”, p.148, Penguin

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