quotations about vanity
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
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
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
What people regard as vanity--leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten--I regard as the highest expression of human dignity.
PAULO COELHO
The Pilgrimage
Vanity is often so excessive, that those who are compelled to walk on crutches would fain make us believe they are raised on stilts.
ELIZA COOK
Diamond Dust
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
To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's.
WILLIAM PENN
Fruits of Solitude
V is for vanity, every time I look at me
I turn myself on, yeah
CHRISTINA AGUILERA
"Vanity"
There is nothing which so carries the mass of men along with it as that which flatters the vanity of the human mind. It may assume the lowliest air, but sinful man seeks his own honour and present exaltation.
WILLIAM KELLY
Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Minor Prophets
If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
False modesty is the last refinement of vanity.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
The tyrant is a child of Pride
Who drinks from his sickening cup
Recklessness and vanity,
Until from his high crest headlong
He plummets to the dust of hope.
SOPHOCLES
Oedipus Rex
Most People dislike Vanity in others whatever Share they have of it themselves, but I give it fair Quarter wherever I meet with it, being persuaded that it is often productive of Good to the Possessor and to others that are within his Sphere of Action: And therefore in many Cases it would not be quite absurd if a Man were to thank God for his Vanity among the other Comforts of Life.
BENJAMIN FRANKLIN
Autobiography
Everywhere you find the man of thews and sinews who toils, and the lymphatic man who torments himself; and pleasures are everywhere the same, for when all sensations are exhausted, all that survives is Vanity--Vanity is the abiding substance of us, the I in us.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Physiology of Marriage
A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference.
LISA KLEYPAS
Devil in Winter
A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments.
FYODOR DOSTOEVSKY
Notes from Underground
It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable to us.
LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Maxims
Alas for human nature, that the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed so much longer than the wounds of affection!
THOMAS BABINGTON MACAULAY
Essays and Lays of Ancient Rome
Once scorned as an affliction of the overly self-involved, vanity is lately being embraced as a novel kind of positive reinforcement to encourage healthier lifestyles. Researchers are finding that healthy versions of vanity can help us adapt and adhere to better diets, more rigorous skin-care routines, and regular exercise--the kinds of preventive health measures that may have a lasting impact on one's life span.
VALLI HERMAN
"Why Vanity Is Good for You", Robb Report, February 23, 2017
Vanity is not a happy life. It is one marked by masks, facades, manipulation, false worship, and an insatiable desire for attention that makes the entire world a stage with only one spotlight for ourselves.
JEFFREY F. KIRBY
"In Lent, beware of vanity that always tries to canonize itself", CRUX, March 19, 2017