Vanity Quotes - Page 16

Discourtesy does not spring merely from one bad quality, but from several--from foolish vanity, from ignorance of what is due to others, from indolence, from stupidity, from distraction of thought, from contempt of others, from jealousy.

Yes, vanity is a weakness indeed. But pride - where there is a real superiority of mind, pride will be always under good regulation.

Gazing up into the darkness I saw myself as a creature driven and derided by vanity; and my eyes burned with anguish and anger.

The evil effect of science upon men is principally this, that by far the greatest number of those who wish to display a knowledge of it accomplish no improvement at all of the understanding, but only a perversity of it, not to mention that it serves most of them as a tool of vanity.

A man's own vanity is a swindler that never lacks for a dupe.

O vanity, how little is thy force acknowledged or thy operations discerned! How wantonly dost thou deceive mankind under different disguises! Sometimes thou dost wear the face of pity; sometimes of generosity; nay, thou hast the assurance to put on those glorious ornaments which belong only to heroic virtue.

I have come to have the firm conviction that vanity is the basis of everything, and finally that what one calls conscience is only inner vanity.

There is no restraining men's tongues or pens when charged with a little vanity.

The rationalism of the creative minds was tempered by abundant fantasies, and the supreme beauty of the monuments was probably spoiled by the circumambient vanities and ugliness; in a few cases the Greeks came as close to perfection as it was possible to do, yet they were human and imperfect.

We crave support in vanity, as we do in religion, and never forgive contradictions in that sphere.

Our vanities differ as our noses do: all conceit is not the same conceit, but varies in correspondence with the minutiae of mental make in which one of us differs from another.

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.

Flattery is a kind of bad money, to which our vanity gives us currency.

That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.

The love of new acquaintance comes not so much from being weary of what we had before, or from any satisfaction there is in change, as from the distaste we feel in being too little admired by those that know us too well, and the hope of being more admired by those that know us less.

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.

Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.

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.

We probably have a greater love for those we support than for those who support us. Our vanity carries more weight than our self-interest.

Vanity is a vital aid to nature: completely and absolutely necessary to life. It is one of nature's ways to bind you to the earth.

Vanity, indeed, is the very antidote to conceit; for while the former makes us all nerve to the opinion of others, the latter is perfectly satisfied with its opinion of itself.

For our vanity is such that we hold our own characters immutable, and we are slow to acknowledge that they have changed, even for the better.

I left Gorbachev's office thinking that everything about him was outsized: his achievements, his mistakes, and, now, his vanity and bitterness.

Yes, be different, but not for the vanities of being different.

There is more jealousy between rival wits than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. But in both cases there must be pretensions, or there will be no jealousy.