VANITY
In the stress of modern life, how little
room is left for that most comfortable
vanity that whispers in our
ears that failures are not fault!
?Agnes Repplier
To act from pure benevolence
is not possible for finite beings.
Human benevolence is mingled with vanity,
interest, or some other motive.
?James Boswell
Vanity is so secure in the heart
of man that everyone wants to
be admired: even I who write this,
and you who read this.
?Blaise Pascal
The common practice of keeping up
appearances with society is a mere
selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.
?John Ruskin
Know that it is good to work.
Work with love, and think of liking
it when you do it. It is easy and
interesting. It is a privilege. There
is nothing hard about it but your
anxious vanity and fear of failure.
?Brenda Ueland
It must require an inordinate share
of vanity and presumption,
too, after enjoying so much that
is good and beautiful on earth,
to ask the Lord for
immortality in addition to all.
?Heinrich Heine
Cure yourself of the affliction of caring
how you appear to others. Concern
yourself only with how you appear
before God, Concern yourself only with
the idea that God may have of you.
?Miguel De Unamuno
Even in a time of elephantine vanity
and greed, one never has to look far to
see the campfires of gentle people.
?Garrison Keillor
Self-love seems so often unrequited.
?Anthony Powell
My father said, "Politics asks
the question: Is it expedient?
Vanity asks: Is it popular? But
conscience asks: Is it right?"
?Dexter Scott King
Magnanimous people have
no vanity, they have no jealousy,
and they feed on the true and the
solid wherever they find it.
And, what is more,
they find it everywhere.
?Van Wyck Brooks
We would rather speak ill of ourselves
than not talk about ourselves at all.
?François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
The only cure for vanity is laughter,
and the only fault that's laughable is vanity.
?Henri Bergson
One will rarely err if extreme actions
be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions
to habit, and mean actions to fear.
?Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche
Self-love is the greatest of all flatterers.
?François Duc de La Rochefoucauld
If a person is to get the meaning of life
he must learn to like the facts about himself --
ugly as they may seem to his sentimental vanity --
before he can learn the truth behind the facts.
And the truth is never ugly.
?Eugene O'Neill
Never "just run out for a few minutes"
without looking your best.
This is not vanity -- it's self-liking.
Your face is always on display.
?Estee Lauder
I think I may boast myself to be, with
all possible vanity, the most unlearned
and uninformed female who ever
dared to be an authoress.
?Jane Austen
When you're 50 you start thinking
about things you haven't thought about
before. I used to think getting old was about
vanity- but actually it's about losing people
you love. Getting wrinkles is trivial.
?Joyce Carol Oates
No man thinks there is much ado about
nothing when the ado is about himself.
?Anthony Trollope
Vanity is as ill at ease under
indifference as tenderness is under
a love which it cannot return.
?George Eliot
There is nothing so agonizing to the
fine skin of vanity as the
application of a rough truth.
?Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton
To say that a man is vain means
merely that he is pleased with the
effect he produces on other people.
A conceited man is satisfied with
the effect he produces on himself.
?Max Beerbohm
If there is a single quality that is shared
by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by "vanity"
only that they appreciate their own worth.
Without this kind of vanity they would not be great.
And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing.
?Yousef Karsh
Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.
?Joseph Conrad
Rome took all the vanity out of me;
for after seeing the wonders there,
I felt too insignificant to live,
and gave up all my foolish hopes in despair.
?Louisa May Alcott
Possibly, more people kill themselves
and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy,
jealousy, malice or desire for revenge.
?Iris Murdoch
