Vanity Quotes

• Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.

  Jane Austen

  Inspiring, Weak, Produce

  Jane Austen (2008). “Jane Austen's Emma. Illustrated by Hugh Thomson.”, p.21, Shoes & Ships & Sealing Wax

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• Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us.

  Jane Austen

  Pride, Thinking, Mrs Bennet

  Jane Austen (2008). “Pride and Prejudice”, p.26, Waking Lion Press

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• We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Life, Women, Conceited

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• Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.

  Julian Casablancas

  Common Sense, Common

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• Vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last,--a long way leading nowhere.

  Ralph Waldo Emerson

  Horse, Men, Long

  Ralph Waldo Emerson (1872). “The Prose Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson: Representative men. English traits. Conduct of life”, p.375

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• All men dream, but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds, wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act on their dreams with open eyes, to make them possible.

  T. E. Lawrence

  Inspirational, Success, Dream

  The Seven Pillars of Wisdom suppressed introductory chapter (1926).

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• Everyone has his vanity, and each one's vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.

  Fernando Pessoa

  Soul, Forget, Equal

  "The Book of Disquiet". Book by Fernando Pessoa (1982). Translated by Richard Zenith, p. 88, 2006.

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• It's not vanity to feel you have a right to be beautiful. Women are taught to feel we're not good enough, that we must live up to someone else's standards. But my aim is to cherish myself as I am.

  Elle Macpherson

  Beautiful, Fashion, Not Good Enough

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• Cure yourself of the affliction of caring how you appear to others. Concern yourself only with how you appear before God, concern yourself only with the idea that God may have of you.

  Miguel de Unamuno

  Caring, Ideas, Affliction

  Miguel de Unamuno (2015). “Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno, Volume 3: Our Lord Don Quixote”, p.22, Princeton University Press

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• Stupidity talks, vanity acts.

  Victor Hugo

  Stupidity

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• Never underestimate a man who overestimates himself.

  Franklin D. Roosevelt

  Men, Underestimate, Overestimate

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• Serenity, regularity, absence of vanity,Sincerity, simplicity, veracity, equanimity, Fixity, non-irritability, adaptability, Humility, tenacity, integrity, nobility, magnanimity, charity, generosity, purity. Practise daily these eighteen "ities" You will soon attain immortality.

  Socrates

  Integrity, Humility, Generosity

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• They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Eggs, Hens

  Ambrose Bierce (2009). “The Devil's Dictionary: Easyread Super Large 18pt Edition”, p.379, ReadHowYouWant.com

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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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• There are no grades of vanity; there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

  Mark Twain

  Humorous, Grades, Ability

  Mark Twain, Caroline Thomas Harnsberger (2009). “Mark Twain at Your Fingertips: A Book of Quotations”, p.494, Courier Corporation

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• Vanity is the quicksand of reason.

  George Sand

  Inspirational, Reason, Quicksand

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

  Francois de La Rochefoucauld

  Virtue, Company, Ifs

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• Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner.

  Oscar Wilde

  Sin, Vain, Conscience

  Oscar Wilde (2015). “The Picture of Dorian Gray (with an Essay by Jules Barbey D'Aurevilly)”, p.65, Mondial

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• 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 is often the unseen spur.

  William Makepeace Thackeray

  Unseen, Spurs

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• The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.

  Samuel Butler

  Ignorance, Character, Pride

  Samuel Butler (1827). “The genuine poetical remains of Samuel Butler, with notes by R. Thyer. With a selection from the author's Characters in prose”, p.225

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• The only cure for vanity is laughter. And the only fault that's laughable is vanity.

  Henri Bergson

  Laughter, Humble, Faults

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• I'm not the greatest; I'm the double greatest. Not only do I knock 'em out, I pick the round.

  Muhammad Ali

  Sports, Self Confidence, Boxing

  Twitter post from Jul 15, 2010

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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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• 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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