Vanity Quotes - Page 23

• You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods.

  Robert Schumann

  Different, Pieces, Hearing

  Robert Schumann (1860). “Advice to Young Musicians”, p.20

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• If I have one vanity wish, it would be to direct. It's the only thing I haven't done yet that I would like to.

  Theodore Bikel

  Wish, Would Be, Done

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• To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well.

  Bridget of Sweden

  Writing, Doe, Speak

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• An Actor is an interpreter of other men's words, often a soul which wishes to reveal itself to the world but dare not, a craftsman, a bag of tricks, a vanity bag, a cool observer of mankind, a child and at his best a kind of unfrocked priest who, for an hour or two, can call on heaven and hell to mesmerize a group of innocents.

  Alec Guinness

  Children, Men, Two

  Alec Guinness (1986). “Blessings in Disguise”, New York : Knopf

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• To find love in Paris you must go down among those classes where the absence of education and of vanity, and the struggle for bare necessities, have allowed more energy to survive.

  Stendhal

  Struggle, Class, Paris

  Stendhal (1957). “Love”, Merlin Pr

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• It's the ones who can't let go - of fear or anger, lust or greed, vanity or pride or power - who are most at risk of becoming corrupted.

  Kate Elliott

  Letting Go, Pride, Greed

  Kate Elliott (2009). “Traitors' Gate”, p.877, Macmillan

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• Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

  Matthew McConaughey

  Motivation, Fairs

  "Channing Tatum and Matthew McConaughey talk Magic Mike workouts, dance moves and stripping music". Interview with Oliver Franklin-Wallis, www.gq-magazine.co.uk. July 12, 2012.

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• I am vain. I think vanity is a good thing. It's done more good things for me than it has not.

  Matthew McConaughey

  Thinking, Done, Good Things

  "Just Keep McConaugheying". Interview with Brett Martin, www.gq.com. October 20, 2014.

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• I don't read a lot of magazines, but when I'm traveling, I'll pick up a copy of 'Vanity Fair' to read on the plane - it's like a full meal! The articles are so good, especially the crime stories. Browsing the Web is more like snacking - but I live on snacks.

  Sam Trammell

  Snacks, Meals, Stories

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• My most treasured item is the brown leather bag that my mum bought me from a little Italian shop for my 21st. It's supposed to be a vanity bag, but I use it as a handbag.

  Felicity Jones

  Italian, Bags, Use

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• The vanity of being asked advice often makes us confirm the opinion of those that consult us.

  Norm MacDonald

  Advice, Opinion

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• Aping urbanity,
  Oozing with vanity,
  Plump as a manatee,
  Faking humanity,
  Intellectual inanity,
  Journalistic calamity,
  Fox Noise insanity,
  You're a profanity,
  Hannity.

  John Cleese

  Insanity, Humanity, Intellectual

  "Ode to Sean Hannity". Poem by John Cleese, www.dailykos.com.

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• One thing House needs Wilson for is vanity. He needs someone to laugh at his jokes.

  Hugh Laurie

  Laughing, House, Needs

  FaceBook post by Hugh Laurie from Apr 06, 2012

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• To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. . . . For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.

  Immanuel Kant

  Work, Self, Joy

  Immanuel Kant (2012). “Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysics of Morals”, p.14, Courier Corporation

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• The late John Jacob Astor, a personage little given to poetic enthusiasm, had no hesitation in pronouncing my first grand point to be prudence; my next, method. I do not speak it in vanity, but simply record the fact, that I was not unemployed in my profession by the late John Jacob Astor; a name which, I admit, I love to repeat, for it hath a rounded and orbicular sound to it, and rings like unto bullion. I will freely add, that I was not insensible to the late John Jacob Astor's good opinion.

  Herman Melville

  Love, Names, Age

  Herman Melville (2006). “Bartleby the Scrivener: Easyread Comfort Edition”, p.2, ReadHowYouWant.com

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• [Newton wrote to Halley ... that he would not give Hooke any credit] That, alas, is vanity. You find it in so many scientists. You know, it has always hurt me to think that Galileo did not acknowledge the work of Kepler.

  Albert Einstein

  Hurt, Science, Thinking

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• It is naturally given to all men to esteem their own inventions best.

  Thomas More

  Men, Invention, Given

  Thomas More (1997). “Utopia”, p.29, Wordsworth Editions

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• Through your rags I see your vanity.

  Socrates

  Rags

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• 'Blessed are the poor in spirit, for they shall see God' suggested to me a heavenly welfare program for the meek. Today that saying reveals an astute insight into egotism, about how those with swollen pride or vanity cannot see anything larger than themselves.

  Huston Smith

  Blessed, Pride, Welfare Programs

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• Tilling the fertile soil of man's vanity.

  Ellen Glasgow

  Men, Soil, Fertile

  Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (1938). “Works”

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• VANITY, n. The tribute of a fool to the worth of the nearest ass.

  Ambrose Bierce

  Fool, Ass, Tribute

  Ambrose Bierce (2016). “The Devil's Dictionary: The Devil World”, p.229, 谷月社

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• The public has always, and in every age, been badly brought up. They are continually asking Art to be popular, to please their want of taste, to flatter their absurd vanity, to tell them what they have been told before, to show them what they ought to be tired of seeing, to amuse them when they feel heavy after eating too much, and to distract their thoughts when they are wearied of their own stupidity.

  Oscar Wilde

  Art, Tired, Stupidity

  Oscar Wilde, General Press (2016). “The Complete Works of Oscar Wilde: Novel, Short Stories, Poetry, Essays and Plays”, p.1043, GENERAL PRESS

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• Whenever vanity and gaiety, a love of pomp and dress, furniture, equipage, buildings, great company, expensive diversions, and elegant entertainments get the better of the principles and judgments of men and women, there is no knowing where they will stop, nor into what evils, natural, moral, or political, they will lead us.

  John Quincy Adams

  Men, Knowing, Evil

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• Not curiosity, not vanity, not the consideration of expediency, not duty and conscientiousness, but an unquenchable, unhappy thirst that brooks no compromise leads us to truth.

  Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel

  Curiosity, Unhappy, Compromise

  "Briefe von und an Hegel, Volume 4". Book by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, 1977.

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• No insect hangs its nest on threads as frail as those which will sustain the weight of human vanity.

  Edith Wharton

  Weight, Nests, Frail

  Edith Wharton (2015). “The House of Mirth”, p.112, Xist Publishing

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