Vain Quotes - Page 16

• I'm vain enough to want do a movie again, but right now more roles are the last thing on my list.

  Gwen Stefani

  Roles, Want, Lasts

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• Dreams grow holy put in action; work grows fair through starry dreaming, But where each flows on unmingling, both are fruitless and in vain.

  Adelaide Anne Procter

  Dream, Flow, Action

  Adelaide Anne Procter (1861). “Legends and Lyrics: A Book of Verses”, p.111

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• I also realized that the philosophers, far from ridding me of my vain doubts, only multiplied the doubts that tormented me and failed to remove any one of them. So I chose another guide and said, Let me follow the Inner Light; it will not lead me so far astray as others have done, or if it does it will be my own fault, and I shall not go so far wrong if I follow my own illusions as if I trusted to their deceits.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Philosophy, Light, Doubt

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1979). “The indispensable Rousseau”, Quartet Books (UK)

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• As far as our noblest hardwood forests are concerned, the animals, especially squirrels and jays, are our greatest and almost only benefactors. It is to them that we owe this gift. It is not in vain that the squirrels live in or about every forest tree, or hollow log, and every wall and heap of stones.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Wall, Animal, Squirrels

  David R. Foster, Henry David Thoreau (2009). “Thoreau's Country: Journey through a Transformed Landscape”, p.147, Harvard University Press

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• The day of my departure at length arrived. Clerval spent the last evening with us. He had endeavoured to persuade his father to permit him to accompany me and to become my fellow student, but in vain. His father was a narrow-minded trader, and saw idleness and ruin in the aspirations and ambition of his son. Henry deeply felt the misfortune of being debarred from a liberal education. He said little, but when he spoke I read in his kindling eye and in his animated glance a restrained but firm resolve not to be chained to the miserable details of commerce.

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

  Father, Eye, Ambition

  Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (2005). “Frankenstein”, p.36, Prestwick House Inc

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• Folly, thou conquerest, and I must yield!
  Against stupidity the very gods
  Themselves contend in vain. Exalted reason,
  Resplendent daughter of the head divine,
  Wise foundress of the system of the world,
  Guide of the stars, who are thou then, if thou,
  Bound to the tail of folly's uncurb'd steed,
  Must, vainly shrieking, with the drunken crowd,
  Eyes open, plunge down headlong in the abyss.

  Friedrich Schiller

  Death, Wise, Daughter

  Friedrich Schiller (1861). “Schiller's Complete Works”, p.435

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• There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve.

  Henry David Thoreau

  Sad, Roots, Evil

  Henry David Thoreau (1882). “Walden”, p.120

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• Was it Gorky who had said, "If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered them in vain, indeed you have lived in vain".

  Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

  Children, Parenting, Said

  "Cancer Ward".

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• It is vain for the sober man to knock at poesy's door.

  Plato

  Men, Doors, Poetry

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• Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud

  Robert Green Ingersoll

  Life, Two, Looks

  Robert Green Ingersoll (1952). “Life and Letters”

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• The man of pleasure, by a vain attempt to be more happy than any man can be, is often more miserable than most men are.

  Charles Caleb Colton

  Men, Miserable, Pleasure

  Charles Caleb Colton (1836). “Lacon: Or, Many Things in Few Words, Addressed to Those who Think”, p.108

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• All our efforts to attain immortality-by statesmanship, by conquest, by science or the arts-are equally vain in the long run, because the long run is longer than any of us can imagine.

  Sydney J. Harris

  Running, Art, Long

  Sydney J. Harris (1986). “Clearing the ground”, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• The real satisfaction which praise can afford, is when what is repeated aloud agrees with the whispers of conscience, by showing us that we have not endeavored to deserve well in vain.

  Samuel Johnson

  Real, Satisfaction, Praise

  Samuel Johnson (1833). “The Life of Johnson: with Maxims and Observations: Moral, Critical, and Miscellaneous, Accurately Selected from the Works of Dr. Samuel Johnson, and Arranged in Alphabetical Order”, p.218

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• The terrors of truth and dart of death To faith alike are vain.

  Herman Melville

  Faith, Terror

  Herman Melville (1866). “Battle-Pieces and Aspects of the War”, p.15

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• O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.

  Ben Jonson

  Fear, Passion, Men

  Ben Jonson, William Gifford (1816). “The Works of Ben Jonson...: With Notes Critical and Explanatory, and a Biographical Memoir”, p.133

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• Neither prosperity nor empire nor heaven can be worth winning at the price of a virulent temper, bloody hands, an anguished spirit, and a vain hatred of the rest of the world.

  John Milton

  Hate, Winning, Hands

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• The vain poet is of the opinion that nothing of his can be too much: he sends to you basketful after basketful of juiceless fruit, covered with scentless flowers.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Flower, Too Much, Fruit

  Walter Savage Landor (1853). “The Last Fruit Off an Old Tree”, p.111

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• Natural wealth is limited and easily obtained; the wealth defined by vain fancies is always beyond reach.

  Epicurus

  Fancy, Wealth, Natural

  Epicurus (1964). “Letters: Principles Doctrines, and Vatican Sayings Translated, with an Introd. and Notes, by Russel M. Geor. Indianapolis Merrill”

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• Unless we find repose within ourselves, it is vain to seek it elsewhere.

  Hosea Ballou

  Elsewhere, Repose

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• It is vain to ask of the gods what man is capable of supplying for himself.

  Epicurus

  Men, Capability, Asks

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• June falls asleep upon her bier of flowers;
  In vain are dewdrops sprinkled o'er her,
  In vain would fond winds fan her back to life,
  Her hours are numbered on the floral dial.

  Lucy Larcom

  Summer, Fall, Flower

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• As historians, we refuse to allow ourselves these vain speculations which turn on possibilities that, in order to be reduced to actuality, suppose an overturning of the Universe, in which our globe, like a speck of abandoned matter, escapes our vision and is no longer an object worthy of our regard. In order to fix our vision, it is necessary to take it such as it is, to observe well all parts of it, and by indications infer from the present to the past.

  Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon

  Science, Past, Order

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• Kindness is the evidence of greatness. If anyone is glad that you are here, then you have not lived in vain.

  Charles Fenno Hoffman

  Kindness, Greatness, Be Kind

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• We are not to suppose, that there is any violent exertion of power, such as is required in order to produce a great event in little time; in nature, we find no deficiency in respect of time, nor any limitation with regard to power. But time is not made to flow in vain; nor does there ever appear the exertion of superfluous power, or the manifestation of design, not calculated in wisdom to effect some general end.

  James Hutton

  Nature, Science, Power

  James Hutton (1788*). “Theory of the earth; or an investigation of the laws observable in the composition, dissolution and restoration of land upon the globe. (From. the Trans., Roy. soc. of Edinb.).”, p.86

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• In the final, the positive, state, the mind has given over the vain search after absolute notions, the origin and destination of the universe, and the causes of phenomena, and applies itself to the study of their laws - that is, their invariable relations of succession and resemblance. Reasoning and observation, duly combined, are the means of this knowledge. What is now understood when we speak of an explanation of facts is simply the establishment of a connection between single phenomena and some general facts.

  Auguste Comte

  Knowledge, Mean, Science

  "Auguste Comte and Positivism: The Essential Writings".

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