Quotes About Vanity

Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously. Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you! It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity.

Right now I am full of greed and vanity, so I cannot live with you like before. But may be we can meet like this. I think just being together and talking would be nice. But when we grow old, when greed and vanity will be completely gone, when I will be tired of singing can I return to that place too?

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).

What we call generosity is for the most part only the vanity of giving; and we exercise it because we are more fond of that vanity than of the thing we give.

Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it.

When we stay close to the wisdom of our knowing, seeking solutions to our problems in the sanctuary of the heart and not in the vanity of the mind, then we can pretty much trust in the unfolding, mysterious wisdom of life.

What man needs is not philosophy or religion in the academic or formalistic sense of the term, but ability to think rightly. The malady of the age is not absence of philosophy or even irreligion but wrong thinking and a vanity which passes for knowledge. Though it is difficult to define right thinking, it cannot be denied that it is the goal of the aspirations of everyone.

Vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last,--a long way leading nowhere.

Those Women who boast the Affections of their Admirers, have a greater share of Vanity than Love.

Whatever talents I possess may suddenly diminish or suddenly increase. I can with ease become an ordinary fool. I may be one now. But it doesn't do to upset one's own vanity.

What you do is take the power [popularity] gives you - which is very temporary and minor but significant - and use it. The danger is that you use it on a vanity project that no one wants to watch.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

Friendship is cemented by interest, vanity, or the want of amusement; it seldom implies esteem, or even mutual regard.

I have to figure out why I worked at a job I hated for years. I have to find out why I can’t see what everyone else sees in me. I don’t feel beautiful. When I look in the mirror, I never saw beautiful. For this to happen to someone like me, it’s devastating, Jonas. I don’t want you to think it’s vanity, it isn’t. I can’t see me and I need to be able to do that. I need to find out what I’m like and what I want. I have to be comfortable in my own skin before I can be in a relationship the way you want.

War makes monsters of men, you once said to me Todd. Well, so does too much knowledge. Too much knowledge of your fellow man, too much knowledge of his weakness, his pathetic greed and vanity, and how laughably easy it is to control him.

God got the power, man has got his vanity. Man gotta choose before God can set him free.

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.

I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did.

The a priori method is distinguished for its comfortable conclusions. It is the nature of the process to adopt whatever belief weare inclined to, and there are certain flatteries to the vanity of man which we all believe by nature, until we are awakened from our pleasing dream by rough facts.

Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.

... do not listen to vain and empty talk, in which the majority of world-loving people spend their time, and do not take pleasure in it. For the law says: 'You shall not raise false reports' (Ex. 23:1). Solomon says: 'Remove far from me vanity and lies' (Prov. 30:8). The Lord said: 'But I say to you, every idle word that men shall speak they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment' (Mt. 12:36).

Eternity to a child offers goodness, and eternal life to a man is essentially corrupting because it involves a certain amount of vanity to embrace it.

Because handsomeness is always accompanied by vanity.And I suppose ugliness is accompanied by a wealth of virtues?

So when I look in the mirror I'm driven by both vanity and fear.

Virtue would not make such advances if there were not a little vanity to keep it company.

The feminine vanity-case is the graveyard of masculine illusions.

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.

Whatever pretext we may give for our affections, often it is only interest and vanity which cause them.

I am philosophical Christ; crucified on the cross of ignorance for the sake of divine vanity.

To all those whose progress remains hampered by ego-related distractions, let humility - the spiritual cornerstone upon which Karate rests - serve to remind one to place virtue before vice, values before vanity and principles before personalities.

Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.

A knowledge of thyself will preserve thee from vanity.

'Snow White' is an old fairy tale, so obviously the idea of vanity and obsession with youth is long-standing. With today's science, people have become crazy with trying to move their face around. It's bizarre.

Whatever littleness and vanity is to be observed in the minds of women, it is, like the cruelty of butchers, a temper that is wrought into them by that life which they are taught and accustomed to lead.

The pain others give passes away in their later kindness, but that of our own blunders, especially when they hurt our vanity, never passes away

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us.

... many a heart is caught in the rebound ... Pride may be soothed by the ready devotion of another; vanity may be excited the more keenly by recent mortification.

The nicest gifts are those left, nameless and quiet, unburdened with love, or vanity, or the desire for attention.

Courage consists, however, in agreeing to flee rather than live tranquilly and hypocritically in false refuges. Values, morals, homelands, religions, and these private certitudes that our vanity and our complacency bestow generously on us, have many deceptive sojourns as the world arranges for those who think they are standing straight and at ease, among stable things

The whole vanity aspect of building up different muscles - I have no interest.

Its obvious nonsense, but it makes nice people feel good about themselves to do their bit for the planet. Its vanity of a grotesque kind to believe that mankind, and our carbon footprint, has more impact on the future of Earth than Nature, which bends our planet to its will, as it sees fit.

[Vanity] is an unrecognised form of stupidity, you have to forget the cosmic meaninglessness of all our acts to be able to be vain and that's a glaring form of stupidity.

The greatest human virtue bears no proportion to human vanity. We always think ourselves better than we are, and are generally desirous that others should think us still better than we think ourselves. To praise us for actions or dispositions which deserve praise is not to confer a benefit, but to pay a tribute. We have always pretensions to fame which, in our own hearts, we know to be disputable, and which we are desirous to strengthen by a new suffrage; we have always hopes which we suspect to be fallacious, and of which we eagerly snatch at every confirmation.

Killing animals to make a fashion statement = a sickening + cold-blooded vanity.

Vanity asks, is it popular? Politics ask, will it work? But conscience and morality ask, is it right?

Vanity is a motive of immense potency.

If you know you're worth nothing, only a gamble with death can gratify your vanity.

A good stylist should have narcissistic enjoyment as he works. He must be able to objectivize his work to such an extent that he catches himself feeling envious and has to jog his memory to find that he is himself the creator. In short, he must display that highest degree of objectivity which the world calls vanity.