quotations about vanity
Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
The Wrecker
Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding.
ALEXANDER POPE
"Thoughts on Various Subjects"
The vanity of others is only counter to our taste when it is counter to our vanity.
FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE
Beyond Good and Evil
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 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
Vanity is a confounded donkey, very apt to put his head between his legs and chuck us over.
FREDERICK MARRYAT
attributed, Day's Collacon
To feel vanity on account of anything, is proving that we are not accustomed to it.
PIERRE CLAUDE VICTOIRE BOISTE
attributed, Day's Collacon
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"
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
In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.
DAVID HEWSON
Macbeth: A Novel
That was the source of my vanity and my cowardice: always I believed everyone was watching me.
ANDRE DUBUS
"The Judge and Other Snakes", Broken Vessels
If you spend your life sparing people's feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can't distinguish what should be respected in them.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
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
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
There is nothing which so carries the mass of men along with it as that which flatters the vanity of the human mind. It may assume the lowliest air, but sinful man seeks his own honour and present exaltation.
WILLIAM KELLY
Lectures Introductory to the Study of the Minor Prophets