Vanity Quotes - Page 5

• 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

  32 Copy quote

  Show source

• Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Men, Mad, Folly

  10 Copy quote

• Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together.

  Bernard de Mandeville

  Pride, Together, Virtue

  Bernard de Mandeville (1723). “The Fable of the Bees”, p.138, Jazzybee Verlag

  13 Copy quote

  Show source

• A man's vanity tells him what is honor, a man's conscience what is justice.

  Walter Savage Landor

  Men, Justice, Honor

  Walter Savage Landor (1876). “Dialogues of sovereigns and statesmen”, p.50

  27 Copy quote

  Show source

• Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification.

  Alice Thomas Ellis

  Mortification, Dies

  8 Copy quote

• Scarcely have I ever heard or read the introductory phrase, "I may say without vanity," but some striking and characteristic instance of vanity has immediately followed.

  Benjamin Franklin

  May, Phrases, Characteristics

  Benjamin Franklin (1815). “Life of Doctor Benjamin Franklin”, p.10

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Since the well-known victory over the hare by the tortoise, the descendants of the tortoise think themselves miracles of speed.

  Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach

  Time, Thinking, Miracle

  10 Copy quote

• There is no doubt that in exchanging a self-centered for a selfless life we gain enormously in self-esteem. The vanity of the selfless, even those who practice utmost humility, is boundless.

  Eric Hoffer

  Self Esteem, Humility, Practice

  Eric Hoffer (2011). “The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”, p.15, Harper Collins

  11 Copy quote

  Show source

• False modesty is the masterpiece of vanity: showing the vain man in such an illusory light that he appears in the reputation of the virtue quite opposite to the vice which constitutes his real character; it is a deceit.

  Jean de la Bruyere

  Real, Character, Men

  7 Copy quote

• Conceit is vanity driven from all other shifts, and forced to appeal to itself for admiration.

  William Hazlitt

  Admiration, Driven, Conceit

  William Hazlitt (2015). “Delphi Collected Works of William Hazlitt (Illustrated)”, p.1481, Delphi Classics

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

  Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  Pride, Nationalism

  8 Copy quote

• It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed 'Wisdom.' And then I know exactly what is going to follow: 'Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.'

  Ludwig Wittgenstein

  Wisdom, Culture, Chapters

  Conversation in 1934. "Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections". Book by Rush Rhees, 1981.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vanity is not half a bad principle, if it will but stick to legitimate business.

  Thomas Chandler Haliburton

  Principles, Half, Sticks

  7 Copy quote

• As regards this vice, we read that the peacock is more guilty of it than any other animal. For it is always contemplating the beauty of its tail, which it spreads in the form of a wheel, and by its cries attracts to itself the gaze of the creatures that surround it. And this is the last vice to be conquered.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Animal, Vices, Tails

  Leonardo Da Vinci (2015). “Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci: Complete & Illustrated”, p.939, eKitap Projesi via PublishDrive

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.

  Lord Chesterfield

  Mean, Principles, Philosopher

  7 Copy quote

• If a woman conceals her affection with the same skill from the object of it, she may lose the opportunity of fixing him; and it will then be but poor consolation to believe the world equally in the dark. There is so much of gratitude or vanity in almost any attachment, that it is not safe to leave any to itself. We can all begin ‘freely’- as light preference is natural enough; but there are very few of us who have a heart enough to be really in love without encouragement.

  Jane Austen

  Encouragement, Gratitude, Believe

  7 Copy quote

• No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

  Samuel Johnson

  Hope, Expectations, Library

  'The Rambler' no. 106 (23 March 1751)

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

  William Shakespeare

  Mean, Light, Prey

  William Shakespeare, George Steevens (1852). “The Works of William Shakespeare: Comprising His Dramatic and Poetical Works, Complete ; Accurately Printed from the Text of the Corrected Copy”, p.367

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• If boyhood and youth are but vanity, must it not be our ambition to become men?

  Vincent Van Gogh

  Inspirational, Time, Ambition

  11 Copy quote

• Always first draw fresh breath after outbursts of vanity and complacency.

  Franz Kafka

  Literature, Complacency, Firsts

  Franz Kafka (1991). “The Blue Octavo Notebooks”

  10 Copy quote

  Show source

• There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

  William Shakespeare

  Glasses, Mouths, Made

  'King Lear' (1605-6) act 3, sc. 2, l. [35]

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

  Logan Pearsall Smith

  Writing, Cells, Scary

  Logan Pearsall Smith (1931). “Afterthoughts”

  9 Copy quote

  Show source

• Man that is of woman born is apt to be as vain has his mother.

  Robert Frost

  Mother, Men, Vain

  8 Copy quote

• Meek Nature's evening comment on the shows That for oblivion take their daily birth From all the fuming vanities of earth.

  William Wordsworth

  Earth, Evening, Birth

  William Wordsworth (1847). “The Poems of William Wordsworth”, p.267

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Vanity is a vital aid to nature: completely and absolutely necessary to life. It is one of nature's ways to bind you to the earth.

  Elizabeth Smart

  Earth, Way, Aids

  Elizabeth Smart, Alice Van Wart (1991). “Necessary secrets: the journals of Elizabeth Smart”, Grafton Books

  8 Copy quote

  Show source