quotations about vanity
Every present occasion will catch the senses of the vain main; and with that bridle and saddle you may ride him.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney
The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
To feel vanity on account of anything, is proving that we are not accustomed to it.
PIERRE CLAUDE VICTOIRE BOISTE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Wrecker
Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
It is curious how vanity helps the successful man and wrecks the failure.
OSCAR WILDE
Epigrams of Oscar Wilde
"Vanitas vanitatum" has rung in the ears
Of gentle and simple for thousands of years;
The wail still is heard, yet its notes never scare
Either simple or gentle from Vanity Fair.
FREDERICK LOCKER-LAMPSON
Vanity Fair
There is more jealousy between rival wits, than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
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 LYNCH
Moods of Life
Vanity is obviously my middle name. I think I inherited the trait from my maternal grandmother who was sure, even as she approached 90, that workmen were still whistling at her ... and perhaps they were.
ADRIENNE KAVELLE
"Ayesha", TAP Into, April 26, 2017
Human vanity is so constituted that it stiffens before difficulties. The more an object conceals itself from our eyes, the greater the effort we make to seize it, because it pricks our pride, it excites our curiosity and it appears interesting. In fighting for his God everyone, in fact, fights only for the interest of his own vanity, which, of all the passions produced bye the mal-organization of society, is the quickest to take offense, and the most capable of committing the greatest follies.
PERCY BYSSHE SHELLEY
The Necessity of Atheism and Other Essays
That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable.
BLAISE PASCAL
Pensées
Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when artfully and properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world.
LORD GREVILLE
attributed, Day's Collacon
Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.
JANE AUSTEN
Emma
In the age of Instagram, when every famous face is potentially subject to an iPhone ambush, extreme vanity is more necessity than sin.
GUY TREBAY
"Dermatologist to the famous: The doctor will see you now (if you're a star with a zit)", Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette, April 30, 2017
In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.
DAVID HEWSON
Macbeth: A Novel
Vanity's a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs and chuck us over; but Pride's a fine horse, who will carry us over the ground, and enable us to distance our fellow travelers.... How often have you read of people rising from nothing, and becoming great men? This was from talent, sure enough; but it was talent with pride to force it onward, not talent with vanity to check it.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
Peter Simple
That was the source of my vanity and my cowardice: always I believed everyone was watching me.
ANDRE DUBUS
"The Judge and Other Snakes", Broken Vessels
Everyone has his vanity, and each one's vanity is his forgetting that there are others with an equal soul.
FERNANDO PESSOA
The Book of Disquiet