quotes about Vain
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If you intend to speak a vain word, replace it with a tasbih.
-- Abdullah ibn Mubarak -
For good undone, and gifts misspent, and resolutions vain
-- Adam Lindsay GordonSource : Adam Lindsay Gordon, Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke (1911). “Poems: A.H. Massina”
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Royalty consists not in vain pomp, but in great virtues
-- Agesilaus II -
Was it Gorky who said: "If your children are no better than you are, you have fathered in vain, indeed you have lived in vain.
-- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn -
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Tis all in vain to keep a constant pother About one vice and fall into another.
-- Alexander Pope -
Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane...
-- Alexander Pushkin -
In vain would science scan and trace Firmly her aspect. All the while, There gleams upon her far-off face A vague unfathomable smile.
-- Alfred Austin -
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Most Hollywood men are too vain and shallow for me.
-- Alley Mills -
Ah, cruel 'tis to love, And cruel not to love, But cruelest of all To love and love in vain.
-- Anacreon -
No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.
-- Andre Breton -
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Say not the struggle nought availeth, The labour and the wounds are vain, The enemy faints not, nor faileth, And as things have been, things remain.
-- Arthur Hugh Clough -
That power is in vain which is never in use.
-- Benjamin Whichcote -
The vain being is the really solitary being.
-- Berthold Auerbach -
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Kindness is the evidence of greatness. If anyone is glad that you are here, then you have not lived in vain.
-- Charles Fenno Hoffman -
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.
-- Charlotte Bronte -
I am intrigued by glamorous women A vain woman is continually taking out a compact to repair her makeup. A glamorous woman knows she doesn't need to.
-- Clark GableSource : Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.
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I'm not so vain as to believe that my involvement changes anything whatsoever.
-- Danny Glover -
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Nature has made nothing in vain.
-- Delarivier ManleySource : Delarivier Manley (2017). “New Atalantis”, p.276, Routledge
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If, at the end of my days, the sum of what I've taken exceeds the sum of what I've given, then I have lived in vain.
-- Doug Rice -
In the beginning there was faith - which is childish; trust - which is vain; and illusion - which is dangerous.
-- Elie Wiesel -
And yet, because I love thee, I obtain From that same love this vindicating grace, To live on still in love, and yet in vain
-- Elizabeth Barrett Browning -
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Mitt der Dummheit k a« mpfen G o« tter selbst vergebens. Even the gods themselves struggle in vain against stupidity.
-- Elsa Schiaparelli -
If you are vain it is vain to sign your pictures and vain not to sign them. If you are not vain it is not vain to sign them and not vain not to sign them.
-- Fairfield Porter -
All that is deformed ought to be reformed. The Word of God alone teaches us what ought to be so, and all reform effected otherwise is vain.
-- Francis Lambert -
If thou neglectest thy love to thy neighbor, in vain thou professest thy love to God; for by thy love to God, the love to thy neighbor is begotten, and by the love to thy neighbor thy love to God is nourished.
-- Francis Quarles -
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If a man doesn't find ease in himself, 'tis in vain to seek it elsewhere.
-- Francois de La Rochefoucauld -
In the mountains of truth, you never climb in vain.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
Against boredom even gods struggle in vain.
-- Friedrich Nietzsche -
Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain.
-- Friedrich Schiller -
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Sacrifices are not in vain. At the end, everything will pay off.
-- Gabby Douglas -
A word of kindness is seldom spoken in vain. It can be and is often treasured by the recipient for life.
-- George D. Prentice -
It is vain to expect a well-balanced government without a well-balanced society.
-- Gideon Welles -
You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be.
-- Gunter Grass -
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He who lives in despair / takes and gives in vain.
-- Hadewijch -
As we get used to women in power, we are likely to discover that they behave much like powerful men - vain, entitled, always looking for more.
-- Hanna Rosin -
When you are disposed to be vain of your mental acquirements, look up to those who are more accomplished than yourself, that you may be fired with emulation; but when you feel dissatisfied with your circumstances, look down on those beneath you, that you may learn contentment.
-- Hannah More -
Men are just as vain as women, and sometimes even more so.
-- Helena Rubinstein -
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No endeavour is in vain; Its reward is in the doing.
-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow -
Whoever, in the pursuit of science, seeks after immediate practical utility, may generally rest assured that he will seek in vain.
-- Hermann von HelmholtzSource : Hermann von Helmholtz, David Cahan (1995). “Science and Culture: Popular and Philosophical Essays”, p.93, University of Chicago Press
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In vain will you fly from one vice if in your wilfulness you embrace another.
-- Horace -
Nor has he lived in vain, who from his cradle to his grave has passed his life in seclusion.
-- Horace -
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Sow truth, if thou the truth wouldst reap: Who sows the false shall reap the vain.
-- Horatius Bonar -
It is vain to trust in wrong; it is like erecting a building upon a frail foundation, and which will directly be sure to topple over.
-- Hosea Ballou -
Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.
-- Howard Cosell -
You should know how many incompetent men I had to compete with-in vain.
-- Inge Lehmann -
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Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum.
-- Jacques Maritain -
Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain.
-- Jean-Jacques Rousseau -
All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men - more so, if possible.
-- Jerome K. Jerome -
Everything is vain and tortures the spirit instead of calming and satisfying it.
-- Johann Georg Hamann -
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He who has learned to look to God in everything he does is at the same time diverted from all vain thoughts.
-- John Calvin -
Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain.
-- John Calvin -
It is vain to be always looking toward the future and never acting toward it.
-- John Frederick BoyesSource : John Frederick Boyes (1859). “Life and Books: Or, Records of Thought and Reading”, p.1
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If we fail to interest, whether because we are dull and heavy, or because our hearers are so, we teach in vain.
-- John Lancaster Spalding -
In vain doth valour bleed, While Avarice and Rapine share the land.
-- John Milton -
All attempts, then, for mortification of any lust, without an interest in Christ, are vain.
-- John Owen -
He that taketh his own cares upon himself loads himself in vain with an uneasy burden. I will cast all my cares on God; He hath bidden me; they cannot burden Him.
-- Joseph Hall -
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It is vain for painters... to endeavour to invent without materials on which the mind may work.
-- Joshua Reynolds -
If someone calls me vain and mean, I know that he trusts me and has something to confess to me.
-- Karl KrausSource : Karl Kraus (1976). “Half-truths & One-and-a-half Truths: Selected Aphorisms”
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I thought it was quite vain to say, I want to be a model.
-- Kate MossSource : "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.
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Nature forms us in a certain manner, both inwardly and outwardly, and it is in vain to attempt to alter it.
-- Lady Hester StanhopeSource : Lady Hester Lucy Stanhope (1845). “Memoirs of the Lady Hester Stanhope: As Related by Herself in Conversations with Her Physician; Comprising Her Opinions and Anecdotes of Some of the Most Remarkable Persons of Her Time”, p.14
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And I never believed that the multitude / of dreams and many words were vain.
-- Li-Young LeeSource : Li-Young Lee (1990). “The City in which I Love You: Poems”, p.57, BOA Editions, Ltd.
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I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not.
-- Lionel Shriver -
Our life must once have end; in vain we fly From following Fate; e'en now, e'en now, we die.
-- Lucretius -
It is in vain for us to devise schemes by which competition can be put out of civilized life. Competition is the condition of life.
-- Lyman AbbottSource : Lyman Abbott (1899). “The Life that Really is”
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Blot out vain pomp; check impulse; quench appetite; keep reason under its own control.
-- Marcus Aurelius -
As for butterflies, I can hardly conceive of one's attending upon you; but to question the congruence of the complement is vain, if it exists.
-- Marianne Moore -
I do not allow myself vain regrets or foreboding.
-- Mary Boykin Chesnut -
To ask me is in vain; For who goes up your winding stair Can ne'er come down again.
-- Mary HowittSource : Mary Howitt (1834). “Sketches of natural history”, p.123
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O strong soul, by what shore Tarriest thou now? For that force, Surely, has not been left vain!
-- Matthew Arnold -
Knowledge is vain and fruitless which is not reduced to practice.
-- Matthew Henry -
If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.
-- Max EhrmannSource : Max Ehrmann, “Desiderata”
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It is vain to complain of fortune while we fail in policy and conduct.
-- Norm MacDonald -
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I find that men are far more vain than women.
-- Patricia ArquetteSource : Biography/Personal Quotes, www.imdb.com.
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Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.
-- Quintilian -
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord alright!
-- Robert Burns -
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In vain our labours are, whatsoe'er they be, unless God gives the Benediction.
-- Robert Herrick -
I have a theory that evolutionary biologists are more vain than particle physicists.
-- Robin Ince -
I grieve for you, how I mourn for you, who are so very dear to me, but again I can rejoice within my heart, not for nothing have I labored, neither has my exile been in vain.
-- Saint Patrick -
This is that rest this vain world lends, To end in death that all things ends.
-- Samuel DanielSource : Samuel Daniel (1718). “The Poetical Works of Mr. Samuel Daniel ...: To which is Prefix'd, Memoirs of His Life and Writings ...”, p.270
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To be vain of one's rank or place is to show that one is below it.
-- Stanisław I Leszczyński -
Strength diminishes when it seems we are spending it in vain.
-- Susan GlaspellSource : Susan Glaspell (1940). “The morning is near us: a novel”, Stokes
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But he who dies in despair has lived his whole life in vain.
-- Theodor Adorno -
It is vain to trust in wrong; as much of evil, so much of loss, is the formula of human history.
-- Theodore Parker -
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I don't believe things happen in vain. I believe they happen for a reason.
-- Tracey Gold -
No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes
-- Virginia Woolf -
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It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
-- Voltaire -
I don't know what a supermodel is. If they call me that, I might have to punch them. It's just so vain and so unreal.
-- Waris Dirie -
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Fancy brings us as many vain hopes as idle fears.
-- Wilhelm von Humboldt -
Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This false world is but transitory.
-- William DunbarSource : "The Life and Poems of William Dunbar".
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It is vain to do with more what can be done with less.
-- William of Ockham -
Do what good thou canst unknown, and be not vain of what ought rather to be felt than seen.
-- William Penn -