Quotes About Vanity

Rich women, including the queen, made themselves additionally beauteous by bleaching their skin with compounds of borax, sulfur, and lead—all at least mildly toxic

Rich women, including the queen, made themselves additionally beauteous by bleaching their skin with compounds of borax, sulfur, and lead—all at least mildly toxic, sometimes very much more so—for pale skin was a sign of supreme loveliness. (Which makes the "dark lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets an exotic being in the extreme.)

After all, is a gentleman's library of floor-to-ceiling bookshelves anything more than a vanity?

Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

Even those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.

We never keep to the present. We recall the past; we anticipate the future as if we found it too slow in coming and were trying to hurry it up, or we recall the past as if to stay its too rapid flight. We are so unwise that we wander about in times that do not belong to us, and do not think of the only one that does; so vain that we dream of times that are not and blindly flee the only one that is. The fact is the present usually hurts.

Vanity is so firmly anchored in man's heart that a soldier, a camp follower, a cook or a porter will boast and expect admirers, and even philosophers want them; those who write against them want to enjoy the prestige of having written well, those who read them want the prestige of having read them, and perhaps I who write this want the same thing.

What reason for vanity in being plunged into impenetrable darkness?

Do they think that they have given us great pleasure by telling us that they hold our soul to be no more than wind or smoke, and saying it moreover in tones of pride and satisfaction? Is this then something to be said gaily? Is it not on the contrary something to be said sadly, as being the saddest thing in the world?

S'il se vante, je l'abaisse, S'il s'abaisse, je le vante; Et le contredis toujours, Jusqu'à ce qu'il comprenne Qu'il est un monstre incompréhensible.

23] Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.

36] Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion.

La vanité est si ancrée dans le cÅ"ur de l'homme qu'un soldat, un goujat, un cuisinier, un crocheteur se vante et veut avoir ses admirateurs ; et les philosophes mêmes en veulent. Et ceux qui écrivent contre veulent avoir la gloire d'avoir bien écrit ; et ceux qui lisent veulent avoir la gloire de l'avoir lu ; et moi qui écris ceci, ai peut-être cette envie ».

Notre durée vaine et chétive

There is no better proof of human vanity than to consider the causes and effects of love, because the whole universe can be changed by it.

77] Pride. Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it; in other words, we would never travel by sea if it meant never talking about it, and for the sheer pleasure of seeing things we could never hope to describe to others.

Anyone who wants to know the full extent of man's vanity has only to consider the causes and effects of love. The cause is a je ne sais quoi . (Corneille.) And its effects are terrifying. This indefinable something, so trifling that we cannot recognize it, upsets the whole earth, princes, armies, the entire world.

Conceit is not necessarily a disease. It's more of a weakness.

I can hear the turning of the key I've been deceived by the clown inside of me I thought that he was righteous but he's vain Oh, something's a-telling me I wear the ball and chain My patron saint is a-fighting with a ghost He's always off somewhere when I need him most

She had once been the belle of her circle of small tradesmen and salesmen, but now her little pig eyes with their swollen lids could scarcely open.

L'uso del condizionale osservò Giacomorto è spesso una confessione di impotenza - o di vanità.

These infinitesimal distinctions between man and man are too paltry for an Omnipotent Being. How these madmen give themselves away! The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall. But the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow.

The real God taketh heed lest a sparrow fall; but the God created from human vanity sees no difference between an eagle and a sparrow. Oh, if men only knew!

El verdadero Dios pone atención hasta cuando se cae un gorrión; pero el Dios creado por la vanidad humana no ve diferencia alguna entre un águila y un gorrión. ¡Oh, si los hombres por lo menos supieran!