quotations about vanity
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
To feel vanity on account of anything, is proving that we are not accustomed to it.
PIERRE CLAUDE VICTOIRE BOISTE
attributed, Day's Collacon
In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.
DAVID HEWSON
Macbeth: A Novel
If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Vanity is a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs and chuck us over.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
Deeply Odd
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
"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 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
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 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
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
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
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
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
Where doth the world thrust forth a vanity--
So it be new, there's no respect how vile--
That is not quickly buzzed into his ears?
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Richard II
Vanity (pictures in magazines, movie screens)
Vanity (there is a camera, so many beauty queens)
Vanity (it's so good to be)
Fabulous and glamourous, we love ourselves and no one else
Va-va-va-va-vanity va-vanity, va-va-va-vanity
LADY GAGA
"Vanity"