VANITY

Related Subjects: Affectation, Boasting, Braggart, Conceit, Delusion, Dress, Elegance, Fame, Fashion, Flattery, Fop, Illusion, Mirror, Ornament, Ostentation, Peacock, Snob

1. Every man at his best state is altogether vanity.—Bible, Psalms 39:3
   

2. Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie; to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.—Bible, Psalms 62:9
   

3. Vanity of vanities, . . . . all is vanity.—Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:2
   

4. All is vanity and vexation of spirit.—Bible, Ecclesiastes 1:14
   

5. What beats me is how chaps like us can be vain . . . If it were not ridiculous it would disgust me to hear my colleagues praise me so fulsomely to my face.—BRAHMS, Schauffler: The Unknown Brahms
   

6. Even good men like to make the public stare.—BYRON, Don Juan
   

7. Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.—JOSEPH CONRAD, Lord Jim
   

8. Th' adorning thee with so much art
   Is but a barb'rous skill;
   'Tis like the pois'ning of a dart,
   Too apt before to kill.—ABRAHAM COWLEY, The Waiting Maid
   

9. The reason why fond women love to buy
   Adulterate complexion: here 'tis read,—
   False colours last after the true be dead.—THOMAS DEKKER, A Description of a Lady by Her Lover
   

10. It has often been remarked that the breakfast-tables of people who avow themselves indifferent to what the Press may say of them are garnished by all the newspapers on the morning when there is anything to say.—GALSWORTHY, The Silver Spoon
    

11. Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
    Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!—KIPLING, Recessional
    

12. How poor the human mind would be without vanity!—NIETZSCHE, Human, All too Human
    

13. Glitter—and in that one word how much of all that is detestable do we express!—POE, Philosophy of Furniture

14. She would rather be looked around at than up to.—PHIL ROBINSON
    

15. Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.—ROUSSEAU, Emile, or Education
    

16. Take physic pomp;
    Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel.—SHAKESPEARE, King Lear
    

17. It may easily come to pass that a vain man may become proud and imagine himself pleasing to all when he is in reality a universal nuisance.—SPINOZA, Ethics
    

18. He had only one vanity, he thought he could give advice better than any other person.—MARK TWAIN, The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg
    

19. Vanity as an impulse has without doubt been of far more benefit to civilization than modesty has ever been.—W. E. WOODWARD,George Washington