Quotes About Vanity

In realizing all this, we understand how we are just bundles of sense perceptions, with the substance of a dream or a bubble on the surface of the sea. The vanity of the usual kind of self-preoccupation becomes clear, and we are freed from selfish concerns in our enjoyment of the universe as it is, and of our own previously unsuspected depths.

Sometimes I wonder — if I were drop-dead handsome, and every woman I met actually dropped dead, would I ever get tired of it?

In heaven I yearn for knowledge, account all else inanity; On earth I confess an itch for the praise of fools - that's vanity.

Her cutty sark, o' Paisley harn,That while a lassie she had worn,In longitude tho' sorely scanty,It was her best, and she was vauntie.

Now a' is done that men can do,And a' is done in vain.

Self absorption is anti-seductive; it is a sign of insecurity.

Our vanity, our passions, our spirit of imitation, our abstract intelligence, our habits have long been at work, and it is the task of art to undo this work of theirs, making us travel back in the direction from which we have come to the depths where what has really existed lies unknown within us. —Marcel Proust

Aprende a ejercer el hechizo del en- cantador apuntando a las debilidades primarias de la gente: vanidad y amor propio.

For, as Cicero says, even those who argue against fame still want the books they write against it to bear their name in the title and hope to become famous for despising it. Everything else is subject to barter: we will let our friends have our goods and our lives if need be; but a case of sharing our fame and making someone else the gift of our reputation is hardly to be found. Montaigne, 1533-1592

It is a deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and vaunting your gifts and talents, you are winning the master's affection. He may feign appreciation, but at his first opportunity he will replace you with someone less intelligent, less attractive, less threatening, just as Louis XIV replaced the sparkling Fouquet with the bland Colbert.

Rather than flattering Louis XIV, Fouquet's elaborate party offended the king's vanity. Louis would not admit this to anyone, of course—instead, he found a convenient excuse to rid himself of a man who had inadvertently made him feel insecure. Such is the fate, in some form or other, of all those who unbalance the master's sense of self, poke holes in his vanity, or make him doubt his pre-eminence.

Anger and emotion are strategically counterproductive. You must always stay calm and objective. But if you can make your enemies angry while staying calm yourself, you gain a decided advantage. Put your enemies off-balance: Find the chink in their vanity through which you can rattle them and you hold the strings.

It is a deadly but common misperception to believe that by displaying and vaunting your gifts and talents, you are winning the master's affection.

If you cannot help being charming and superior, you must learn to avoid such monsters of vanity. Either that, or find a way to mute your good qualities when in the company of a Cesare Borgia.

The Spartan statesman Lycurgus, seven hundred years ago, is said to have observed: When falls on man the anger of the gods, First from his mind they banish understanding. Such was to be the fate of Caesar. I am sure Cicero was correct: he had gone mad. His success had made him vain, and his vanity had devoured his reason.

I fear there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction

there is in all men who achieve their life's ambition only a narrow line between dignity and vanity, confidence and delusion, glory and self-destruction.

Any effort that has self-glorification as its final endpoint is bound to end in disaster.

Iedere inspanning die zelfverheerlijking tot uiteindelijk doel heeft, moet op een ramp uitdraaien.

Don't let pride get in your way. Pride is a luxury that sometimes you can't afford.

It would be so much easier to be good if one's hair was handsome auburn, don't you think?

Favour is deceitful and beauty is vain, but I should not have minded finding that out for myself, if it had been so ordained. I have no doubt we will all be beautiful when we are angels, but what good will it do us then?

Even eighty-odd is sometimes vulnerable to vanity.

Admit you found it pleasant to be worshipped. Admit that you liked the idea of being a sort of dea ex machina--saving people from their own folly when they didn't in the least want to be saved from it.