Vain Quotes - Page 9

• I love a serious preacher, who speaks for my sake and not for his own; who seeks my salvation, and not his own vain glory. He best deserves to be heard who uses speech only to clothe his thoughts, and his thoughts only to promote truth and virtue.

  Jean Baptiste Massillon

  Use, Speech, Sake

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• O world, world when I was younger I thought there was some order governing you and your deeds. But now you seem to be a labyrinth of errors, a frightful desert, a den of wild beasts, a game in which men move in circles…a stony field, a meadow full of serpents, a flowering but barren orchard, a spring of cares, a river of tears, a sea of suffering, a vain hope.

  Fernando de Rojas

  Spring, Moving, Men

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• And now, my friend, I am going to expose to you all my weaknesses. All men, I believe, are under a necessity of paying tribute at some time or other to Love, and it is vain to strive to avoid it. I was a philosopher, yet this tyrant of the mind triumphed over all my wisdom; his darts were of greater force than all my reasonings, and with a sweet constraint he led me wherever he pleased.

  Peter Abelard

  Sweet, Believe, Men

  Peter Abelard, Héloïse (2017). “Letters of Abelard and Heloise”, p.40, Litres

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• The German Army is tired. The vain effort to defeat Russia's armies has used up its equipment and reduced its morale.

  Walther von Brauchitsch

  Tired, Army, Russia

  "Kaltenborn Edits the War News" Hans Kaltenborn, (p. 25), 1942.

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• I think I've developed into an actress because I've worked darn hard at it and I've learned a great deal from a lot of gifted people. And if I have nothing else to show for my life, apart from a scrapbook full of cuttings, I have the knowledge that my early days in Hollywood weren't in vain.

  Veronica Lake

  Cutting, Thinking, People

  Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.

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• The artist is an interpreter of Nature. People learn to love Nature through pictures. To the artist, nothing is in vain; nothing beneath his notice. If he is great enough, he will exalt every subject which he treats.

  William Morris Hunt

  Artist, People, Enough

  William Morris Hunt (1976). “William Morris Hunt on painting and drawing”, Dover Pubns

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• It is an absolutely vain endeavor to attempt to reconstruct or even comprehend the nature of a human being by simply knowing the forces which have acted upon him. However deeply we should like to penetrate, however close we seem to be drawing to truth, one unknown quantity eludes us: man's primordial energy, his original self, that personality which was given him with the gift of life itself. On it rests man's true freedom; it alone determines his real character.

  Wilhelm von Humboldt

  Real, Character, Men

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• For my part, I believe that the vain, glorious and the violent will not inherit the earth. . . . In pursuance of that faith my friends and I take the hands of the dying in our hands. And some of us travel to the Pentagon, and others live in the Bowery and serve there, and others speak unpopularly and plainly of the fate of the unborn and of convicted criminals. It is all one.

  Daniel Berrigan

  Friendship, Believe, Fate

  Daniel Berrigan (1980). “We Die Before We Live: Talking with the Very Ill”, Harper San Francisco

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• Mithridates, he died old. Housman's passage is based on the belief of the ancients that Mithridates the Great [c. 135-63 B.C.] had so saturated his body with poisons that none could injure him. When captured by the Romans he tried in vain to poison himself, then ordered a Gallic mercenary to kill him.

  A. E. Housman

  Poison, Body, Belief

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• I feel like I am floating in plasma
  I need a teacher or a lover
  I need someone to risk being involved with me.
  I am so vain
  and I am so masochistic.
  How can they coexist?

  Francesca Woodman

  Teacher, Risk, Needs

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• SIREN, n. One of several musical prodigies famous for a vain attempt to dissuade Odysseus from a life on the ocean wave. Figuratively, any lady of splendid promise, dissembled purpose and disappointing performance.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Life, Ocean, Musical

  Ambrose Bierce (2001). “The Unabridged Devil's Dictionary”, p.215, University of Georgia Press

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• And the issue is never the merits of the evidence but always the jealous rivalry of the contestants to see which would be the official light unto the world. Right down to the present day we have been the spectators of a foolish contest between equally vain and bigoted rivals.

  Hugh Nibley

  Jealous, Light, Issues

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• If you love men and they are unfriendly, look into your love; if you rule men and they are unruly, look into your wisdom; if you are courteous to them and they do not respond, look into your courtesy. If what you do is vain, always seek within.

  Mencius

  Wisdom, Men, Looks

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• If one is too lazy to think, too vain to do a thing badly, too cowardly to admit it, one will never attain wisdom.

  Cyril Connolly

  Wisdom, Thinking, Lazy

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• How vain are our fears! I thought to myself. Sometimes we fear that which our opponent (or fate) had never even considered! After this, then, is it any longer worthwhile to rack one's brain to find new ghosts to fear? No, indeed: All hail optimism! - upon playing Hermanis Mattison after he overlooked an unusual knight manouevre.

  Aron Nimzowitsch

  Fate, Knights, Optimism

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• But if you do not have the Tao yourself, what business have you spending your time in vain efforts to bring corrupt politicians into the right path?

  Confucius

  Business, Effort, Taoism

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• Men are vain; but they won't mind women working so long as they get smaller wages for the same job.

  Irvin S. Cobb

  Jobs, Work, Men

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• Seeing the lightest and gayest purple was then most in fashion, he would always wear that which was the nearest black; and he would often go out of doors, after his morning meal, without either shoes or tunic; not that he sought vain-glory from such novelties, but he would accustom himself to be ashamed only of what deserves shame, and to despise all other sorts of disgrace.

  Plutarch

  Fashion, Morning, Doors

  Plutarch (2011). “Plutarch's Lives”, p.528, Bantam

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• People compose the schedules they do out of the priorities they have; and someone who says otherwise is deceiving himself about what he really values. The same thing applies to money that applies to time. I make a practice of watching what people do, never what they say. Whatever is important, to anyone sane, he will make a place for it; people live out their values. Values are different in this respect from "ideals," which are typically vain and effete and thus exist mostly for the sake of promoting self-delusions.

  Kenny Smith

  Time, Philosophy, Self

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• How you speak and the words you use tell much about the image you choose to portray. Use language to build and uplift those around you. Profane, vulgar, or crude language and inappropriate or off-color jokes are offensive to the Lord. Never misuse the name of God or Jesus Christ. The Lord said, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Ex. 20:7).

  Thomas S. Monson

  Uplifting, Jesus, Color

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• Because just as arms have no force outside if there is no counsel within a house, study is vain and counsel useless that is not put to virtuous effect when the time calls.

  Francois Rabelais

  House, Useless, Arms

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• All affectation is the vain and ridiculous attempt of poverty to appear rich

  Johann Kaspar Lavater

  Poverty, Ridiculous, Rich

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• I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  Vanity, May, Speech

  Benjamin Franklin (2006). “The Portable Benjamin Franklin”, p.11, Penguin

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• Man is always inclined to regard the small circle in which he lives as the center of the world and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe and to make his particular, private life the standard of the universe. But he must give up this vain pretense, this petty provincial way of thinking and judging.

  Ernst Cassirer

  Giving Up, Men, Thinking

  Ernst Cassirer, Yale University. Louis Stern Memorial Fund (1944). “An Essay on Man: An Introduction to a Philosophy of Human Culture”, New Haven : Yale University Press ; London : H. Milford, Oxford University Press

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• If there is no free speech, every single life has lived in vain

  Ai Weiwei

  Single Life, Speech, Ifs

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