Vanity famous quotes
06-13-2025
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If we mean to have Heroes, Statesmen and Philosophers, we should have learned women. The world perhaps would laugh at me, and accuse me of vanity, but you I know have a mind too enlarged and liberal to disregard the Sentiment. If much depends as is allowed upon the early Education of youth and the first principals which are instill'd take the deepest root, great benefit must arise from literary accomplishments in women.
-- Abigail Adams -
My father loved biographies. He loved the true tales of interesting people that were shaping our culture. I get why he dug Vanity Fair. You feel smarter, somehow, for reading it.
-- Abigail Spencer -
Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.
-- Abraham Cowley -
Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?
-- Abraham Joshua Heschel -
Yesterday misspent can't be recall'd Vanity makes beauty contemptible Wisdom is more valuable than riches.
-- Abraham Verghese -
The need for sociability induce man to be in touch with his fellow men. However, this need might not ("ne saurait", Fr.) find its full (or complete) satisfaction in the conventional (or superficial, - "conventionnel", Fr.) and deceitful world, in which (or where) everyone is mainly (or mostly) trying to assert oneself in front of others ("devant les autres", Fr.), to appear, and hoping to find in society ("mondaine", Fr.) relationships some advantages for his interest and vanity (or vainglory or conceit", Fr.).
-- African Spir -
Our dogs will love and admire the meanest of us, and feed our colossal vanity with their uncritical homage.
-- Agnes Repplier -
Of course, true love is exceptional - two or three times a century, more or less. The rest of the time there is vanity or boredom.
-- Albert Camus -
Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents
-- Albert Camus -
The ideals which have always shone before me and filled me with joy are goodness, beauty, and truth.
-- Albert Einstein -
There are many reasons for keeping a diary: to make a note of facts that one considers important; to open one's heart, to give vent to one's feelings, to make confessions; from the instinct of economy which sometimes encourages a writer to make good use of even the smallest crumbs of his life, so that he may have one more book to publish; or again from vanity and self- satisfaction.
-- Alberto Moravia -
Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing; Nature cares only for the species.
-- Aldous Huxley -
I have always found that Angels have the vanity to speak of themselves as the only wise.
-- Aldous Huxley -
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 -
The vanity of human life is like a river, constantly passing away, and yet constantly coming on.
-- Alexander Pope -
Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.
-- Alexander Pope -
Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile.
-- Alexander Smith -
The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.
-- Alexander von Humboldt -
Be good, be young, be true! Evil is nothing but vanity, let us have the pride of good, and above all let us never despair.
-- Alexandre Dumas-fils -
Fruits are always of the same nature with the seeds and roots from which they come, and trees are known by the fruits they bear: as a man begets a man, and a beast a beast, that society of men which constitutes a government upon the foundation of justice, virtue, and the common good, will always have men to promote those ends; and that which intends the advancement of one man's desire and vanity, will abound in those that will foment them.
-- Algernon Sidney -
Today, America poses a threat to peace and security in the world. Therefore, the slogan "Death to America" is no longer used only by our people. Today, you see throughout the world people setting fire to the effigy of the American president and chanting the slogan "Death to America." This is because of the American regime's exaggerated demands, its arrogance, its vanity, and its desire to control, and because it is a pawn in the hands of the Zionists.
-- Ali Khamenei -
How heroic to be able to suppress one's vanity to the extent of confessing that the game is too hard.
-- Alice James -
Those who live on vanity must, not unreasonably, expect to die of mortification.
-- Alice Thomas Ellis -
They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.
-- Ambrose Bierce -
When you have a lot of success you don't need vanity any more.
-- Amelie Nothomb -
Do not try to satisfy your vanity by teaching a great many things. Awaken people's curiosity. It is enough to open minds; do not overload them. Put there just a spark. If there is some good inflammable stuff, it will catch fire.
-- Anatole France -
Vanity is both a great motivator and a great deceiver.
-- Andrew Davidson -
The whole vanity aspect of building up different muscles - I have no interest.
-- Andrew Lincoln -
I manage because I have to. Because I've no other way out. Because I've overcome the vanity and pride of being different, I've understood that they are a pitiful defense against being different. Because I've understood that the sun shines differently when something changes. The sun shines differently, but it will continue to shine, and jumping at it with a hoe isn't going to do anything.
-- Andrzej Sapkowski -
So when I look in the mirror I'm driven by both vanity and fear.
-- Andy Whitfield -
advertising confuses values ... By appealing either to fear, or to vanity, or to covetousness, it very skillfully insinuates false values.
-- Ann Bridge -
I feel like all comedy does require a lack of vanity, but multi-cam, especially.
-- Anna Faris -
No; for instead of delivering myself up to the full enjoyment of the as others do, I am always troubling my head about how I could produce the same effect upon canvas; and as that can never be done, it is mere vanity and vexation of spirit.
-- Anne Bronte -
Vanity is apt to inspire contempt, but that becomes immediately tempered by a gentler and more gracious feeling; for the vain man desires to win our approbation, and in this way he flatters us.
-- Arthur Alfred Lynch -
Jealousy, in spite of the mad frenzy of its most splendid displays, is a vice of weakness; it arises from a mind whose aspirations and desires are inferior to its accomplishments; it is the child of baulked vanity and failure of courage.
-- Arthur Alfred Lynch -
Until the Donkey tried to clear The Fence, he thought himself a Deer.
-- Arthur Guiterman -
Vanity is easily forgiven, for we are all vain, and even as we laugh at the weakness of others we feel that their vanity has touched the responding chord of our own.
-- Arthur Lynch -
For it is a matter of daily observation that people take the greatest pleasure in that which satisfies their vanity; and vanity cannot be satisfied without comparison with others.
-- Arthur Schopenhauer -
Oh, the cares of men! how much emptiness there is in human concerns!
-- Aulus Persius Flaccus -
Where in this wide world can man find nobility without pride, friendship without envy, or beauty without vanity?
-- Bantu Holomisa -
The false notion of miracles comes of our vanity, which makes us believe we are important enough for the Supreme Being to upset nature on our behalf.
-- Baron de Montesquieu -
It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.
-- Baruch Spinoza -
Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt.
-- Benjamin Franklin -
Pride and vanity have built more hospitals than all the virtues together,
-- Bernard de Mandeville -
There are those who seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge; that is curiosity. There are those who seek knowledge to be known by others; that is vanity. There are those who seek knowledge in order to serve; that is Love.
-- Bernard of Clairvaux -
There are some who wish to learn for no other reason than that they may be looked upon as learned, which is ridiculous vanity ... Others desire to learn that they may morally instruct others, that is love. And, lastly, there are some who wish to learn that they may be themselves edified; and that is prudence.
-- Bernard of Clairvaux -
The vain being is the really solitary being.
-- Berthold Auerbach -
All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent.
-- Berthold Auerbach -
One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.
-- Bertrand Russell -
I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.
-- Bertrand Russell -
What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power.
-- Bertrand Russell -
Power, like vanity, is insatiable. Nothing short of omnipotence could satisfy it completely.
-- Bertrand Russell -
Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.
-- Blaise Pascal -
We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.
-- Blaise Pascal -
Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling.
-- Blaise Pascal -
[On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed.
-- Blaise Pascal -
We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real.
-- Blaise Pascal -
We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy.
-- Blaise Pascal -
We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.
-- Blaise Pascal -
The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
-- Blaise Pascal -
God got the power, man has got his vanity. Man gotta choose before God can set him free.
-- Bob Dylan -
Know that it is good to work. Work with love, and think of liking it when you do it. It is easy and interesting. It is a privilege. There is nothing hard about it but your anxious vanity and fear of failure.
-- Brenda Ueland -
I'm not invited to the Vanity Fair dinner where they watch the Oscars - or even the Oscars themselves - so I sit at home and watch it with a bunch of close friends.
-- Brett Ratner -
To write well and speak well is mere vanity if one does not live well.
-- Bridget of Sweden -
Let us think often that our only business in this life is to please God. Perhaps all besides is but folly and vanity.
-- Brother Lawrence -
From time to time, just about every Vanity Fair writer has a chance to sell rights to an article or a book to Hollywood.
-- Bryan Burrough -
[The political mind] is a strange mixture of vanity and timidity, of an obsequious attitude at one time and a delusion of grandeurat another time. The political mind is the product of men in public life who have been twice spoiled. They have been spoiled with praise and they have been spoiled with abuse.
-- Calvin Coolidge -
Atrocities are now shown in 30-second bites. Hardcore artistic horror is an expression of hating your neighbour. The gruesome imagination feeds on vanity, lust, self-indulgence and despair, rather than the hope of the Holy Spirit. The Body of Christ needs to look and repent of our own fallenness.... Whatever arena Christians withdraw from goes to hell.
-- Calvin Seerveld -
Men have had the vanity to pretend that the whole creation was made for them, while in reality the whole creation does not suspect their existence.
-- Camille Flammarion -
Of what use are the great number of petrifactions, of different species, shape and form which are dug up by naturalists? Perhaps the collection of such specimens is sheer vanity and inquisitiveness. I do not presume to say; but we find in our mountains the rarest animals, shells, mussels, and corals embalmed in stone, as it were, living specimens of which are now being sought in vain throughout Europe. These stones alone whisper in the midst of general silence.
-- Carl Linnaeus -
Ladies of Fashion starve their happiness to feed their vanity, and their love to feed their pride.
-- Charles Caleb Colton -
Bonfire of the Vanities: The lesson of that book is, never start believing your own press.
-- Charles James -
Those who obtain riches by labor, care, and watching, know their value. Those who impart them to sustain and extend knowledge, virtue, and religion, know their use. Those who lose them by accident or fraud know their vanity. And those who experience the difficulties and dangers of preserving them know their perplexities.
-- Charles Simmons -
What is called liberality is often no more than the vanity of giving, of which some persons are fonder than of what they give.
-- Charlotte Lennox -
I am simply not such a slave to my vanity, and I don't want to be, because as you get older you really have to start accepting the inevitable.
-- Cherie Lunghi -
I work out because that's my job, but what I enjoy about it, beyond the vanity, is the Zen of it. I like getting out of my head, and one great way to do that is to sweat your face off. And to know that, if you're thinking of anything else, you're not working intensely enough.
-- Chris Pine -
Vanity in an old man is charming. It is a proof of an open, nature. Eighty winters have not frozen him up, or taught him concealments. In a young person it is simply allowable; we do not expect him to be above it.
-- Christian Nestell Bovee -
She gave up beauty in her tender youth, gave all her hope and joy and pleasant ways; she covered up her eyes lest they should gaze on vanity, and chose the bitter truth.
-- Christina Rossetti -
It's always our touches of vanity that manage to betray us.
-- Christopher Fry -
Lois and Alexander are by far the most beautiful creatures in the class; their beauty is like the beauty of plants, seemingly untroubled by vanity, anxiety or effort.
-- Christopher Isherwood -
If I ever had any vanity, then I definitely lost it by being on television. It doesn't do you any favours in terms of showing you what you look like and what your emotions are.
-- Clive Anderson -
If I ever had any vanity, then I definitely lost it by being on television.
-- Clive Anderson -
When we are conscious of the least comparative merit in ourselves, we should take as much care to conceal the value we set upon it, as if it were a real defect; to be elated or vain upon it is showing your money before people in want.
-- Colley Cibber -
Every sinew in my body came together in one perfect whole. But those who have ever experienced that feeling, and it doesn't happen very often, will tell you it's in a whole other place of experience from the usual ego or vanity that drives my game. So I'm not afraid to own it for what it was.
-- Cooper Cronk -
The woman is the man's glory, and she naturally delights in the praises which are assurances that she is fulfilling her function; and she gives herself to him who succeeds in convincing her that she, of all others, is best able to discharge it for him. A woman without this kind of "vanity" is a monster.
-- Coventry Patmore -
Without "The Law of Moses" would we all be wandering around like little gods, stealing, raping, and spilling blood whenever our vanity was offended?
-- Dan Barker -
You can't control how you are perceived, and you are a fool if you waste any energy trying to do so. Vanity will get you nowhere.
-- Dave Schulthise -
Speech writers are more vulnerable to vanity than any other group of people in Washington.
-- David Frum -
In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.
-- David Hewson -
I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.
-- David Remnick -
The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
-- Dawn Powell -
Sure I'm cut but not for the sake of vanity...
-- Dean Karnazes -
There’s just something unsettling about studying your reflection. It’s not a matter of being dissatisfied with your face or of being embarrassed by your vanity. Maybe it’s that when you gaze into your own eyes, you don’t see what you wish to see—or glimpse something that you wish weren’t there.
-- Dean Koontz -
Beyond all vanities, fights, and desires, omnipotent silence lies.
-- Dejan Stojanovic
