quotations about vanity
The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness.
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT
Equinoctial Regions of America
The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Wrecker
Vanity is apt to inspire contempt, but that becomes immediately tempered by a gentler and more gracious feeling; for the vain man desires to win our approbation, and in this way he flatters us.
ARTHUR LYNCH
Moods of Life
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
Every present occasion will catch the senses of the vain main; and with that bridle and saddle you may ride him.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY
Aphorisms of Sir Philip Sidney
Vanity is only to be satisfied by gold in floods.
HONORÉ DE BALZAC
Gobseck
There is more jealousy between rival wits, than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex.
CHARLES CALEB COLTON
Lacon
False modesty is the last refinement of vanity.
JEAN DE LA BRUYÈRE
attributed, Day's Collacon
V is for vanity, every time I look at me
I turn myself on, yeah
CHRISTINA AGUILERA
"Vanity"
To be a man's own fool is bad enough; but the vain man is everybody's.
WILLIAM PENN
Fruits of Solitude
To feel vanity on account of anything, is proving that we are not accustomed to it.
PIERRE CLAUDE VICTOIRE BOISTE
attributed, Day's Collacon
A man that is deeply in love with himself will probably succeed in his suit owing to a lack of rivals.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Vanity is a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs and chuck us over.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
attributed, Day's Collacon
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
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
"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
In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.
DAVID HEWSON
Macbeth: A Novel
Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief.
JANE AUSTEN
Emma
If vanity does not overthrow all virtues, at least she makes them totter.
FRANÇOIS DE LA ROCHEFOUCAULD
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims