Vanity quotes
952 quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside vanity — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"There is no law by which to determine the superiority of nations; hence the vanity of the claim, and the idleness of disputes about it. A people risen, run their race, and die either of themselves or at the hands of another, who, succeeding to their power, take possession of their place, and upon their monuments write new names; such is history."
"Gray hairs are death's blossoms."
"I have not the capability to give you my loyalty, nor do I have the vanity to appear as if I did."
"One is honest about oneself either with a sense of shame or with vanity."
"Whether a man hides his bad qualities and vices or confesses them openly, his vanity wants to gain an advantage by it in both cases: just note how subtly he distinguishes between those he will hide his bad qualities from and those he will face honestly and candidly."
"Is not wounded vanity the mother of all tragedies?"
"Our vanity desires that what we do best should be considered what is hardest for us."
"He who denies his own vanity usually possesses it in so brutal a form that he instinctively shuts his eyes to avoid the necessity of despising himself."
"Our vanity would have just that which we do best count as that which is hardest for us. The origin of many a morality."
"For some natures, changing their opinions is just as much a requirement of cleanliness as changing their clothes: for others, however, it is merely a requirement of vanity."
"That little hypocrites and half-crazed people dare to imagine that on their account the laws of nature are constantly broken; such an enhancement of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet Christianity owes its triumph to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity."
"One will seldom go wrong if one attributes extreme actions to vanity, average ones to habit, and pretty ones to fear."
"Good deeds shun the light as anxiously as evil deeds: the latter fear that disclosure will bring on pain (as punishment), while the former fear that disclosure will take away pleasure (that pure pleasure, that pleasure per se, which immediately ceases once the vanity's satisfaction is added)."
"We must put up with our clothes as they are - they have their reason for existing. They are on us to expose us - to advertise what we wear them to conceal. They are a sign; a sign of insincerity; a sign of suppressed vanity; a pretense that we desire gorgeous colors and the graces of harmony and form; and we put them on to propagate that lie and back it up."
"All you drunkards: Put down the intoxicating Vanity Metrics."
"We must not be so ready to fancy ourselves intentionally injured. We must not expect a lively young man to be always so guarded and circumspect. It is very often nothing but our own vanity that deceives us. Women fancy admiration means more than it does."
"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."
"A man who is not a fool can rid himself of every folly except vanity."
"If all were perfect Christians, individuals would do their duty; the people would be obedient to the laws, the magistrates incorrupt, and there would be neither vanity nor luxury in such a state."
"I don't really lift weights. It's kind of a vanity thing that I don't get into."
