Vanity Quotes

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

He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than any other person.

My idea of our civilization is that it is a shoddy, poor thing and full of cruelties, vanities, arrogances, meannesses and hypocrisies.

It is a rule of creative ability that it does nothing of any value, while it is possessed by this afflatus of vanity.

Vanity is not half a bad principle, if it will but stick to legitimate business.

Never expect justice from a vain man; if he has the negative magnanimity not to disparage you, it is the most you can expect.

It is easy to pity when once one's vanity has been tickled.

The churchyard is the market place where all things are rated at their true value, and those who are approaching it talk of the world and its vanities with a wisdom unknown before.

Human vanity cherishes the absurd notion that our species is the final goal of evolution.

The act of love . . . is a confession. Selfishness screams aloud, vanity shows off, or else true generosity reveals itself.

Our civilization survives in the complacency of cowardly or malignant minds -- a sacrifice to the vanity of aging adolescents

Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.

....to abuse the intellect for reasons of pride, vanity, or escape from responsibility, is the fruit of that same tree.

Vanity is both a great motivator and a great deceiver.

The whole vanity aspect of building up different muscles - I have no interest.

Criticism is a study by which men grow important and formidable at very small expense. He whom nature has made weak, and idleness keeps ignorant, may yet support his vanity by the name of a critic.

That is the happiest conversation where there is no competition, no vanity, but a calm, quiet interchange of sentiments...

The most common human act that writing a novel resembles is lying. The working novelist lies daily, very complexly, and at great length.

Vanity is so constantly solicitous of self, that even where its own claims are not interested, it indirectly seeks the aliment which it loves, by showing how little is deserved by others.

My vanity is not dead. I laugh when I see pictures of myself as I am now-maybe so I won't cry, but just because it is really funny how much I've changed.

Vanity's really overrated. When I was 20, teenage girls had my picture on the wall... I don't need to be pretty anymore. I just am who I am.

Vanity is so frequently the apparent motive of advice, that we, for the most part, summon our powers to oppose it without any very accurate inquiry whether it is right.

They said this is Vanity Fair, and I said, Oh, I already take the magazine. They said Annie Leibovitz wants to take your picture and I thought, How nice!

... but the greatest wisdom is blinded by the glare of vanity.

It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

I scarce ever heard or saw the introductory words, "Without vanity I may say," etc., but some vain thing immediately followed.

There is much money given to be laughed at, though the purchasers don't know it; witness A.'s fine horse, and B.'s fine house.

Vanity is the poison of agreeableness; yet as poison, when artfully and properly applied, has a salutary effect in medicine, so has vanity in the commerce and society of the world.

Perhaps I have no talent, but all vanity aside - I do not believe that anyone makes an artistic attempt, no matter how small, without having a little - or there are many fools.

All men are selfish, but the vain man is in love with himself. He admires, like the lover his adored one, everything which to others is indifferent.

It is vanity to desire a long life and to take no heed of a good life.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

The Lord who cannot endure vain repetitions is equally weary of vain variations.

Some men mistake generosity for charity: these flatter themselves that they are giving gratuitously, whilst they are merely rewarding secret services offered their vanity.

Those who write against vanity want the glory of having written well, and their readers the glory of reading well, and I who write this have the same desire, as perhaps those who read this have also.

Whatever praises itself but in the deed, devours the deed in the praise.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

What is called liberality is often no more than the vanity of giving, of which some persons are fonder than of what they give.

The great always sell their society to the vanity of the little.

Large parties given to very young children... foster the passions of vanity and envy, and produce a love of dress and display which is very repulsive in the character of a child.

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.

When blessed with wealth, let them withdraw from the competition of vanity and be modest, retiring from ostentation, and not be the slaves of fashion.

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.

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly.

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I'm not ready for that yet.

Egotism is the tongue of vanity.

[Vanity] is an unrecognised form of stupidity, you have to forget the cosmic meaninglessness of all our acts to be able to be vain and that's a glaring form of stupidity.

Her life was a tissue of vanity and deceit.

I think it's good that people value their bodies and take care of them. I think if you cross the line and begin using your body as an asset or as an extension of your vanity, you've gone too far.

Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been.