Quotes About Vanity

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.

I am a beau only in my books.

I will speak in defense of reason: for the very child of vanity is violence.

the appointed day came, the birds assembled before Jupiter's throne; and, after passing them in review, he was about to make the Jackdaw king, when all the rest set upon the king-elect, stripped him of his borrowed plumes, and exposed him for the Jackdaw that he was.

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.

An empty cart rattles loudly," she said, meaning, One who lacks substance boasts loudest.

Revenge is little more than an adolescent concession to personal vanity.

Faith, to his mind, was a willed asserting of the sacred. If it were made more or less than this then it was mere belief, as children will believe the goblin tale they hear for just so long as it is being told. To hold belief in a material fact was only vanity, easily shattered, where the ideal was a truth eternal in whatever form expressed.

The desire to impress is an efficient means of bringing out ones least impressive qualities.

My father said, 'Politics asks the question Is it expedient Vanity asks Is it popular But conscience asks Is it right'

I loathe narcissism, but I approve of vanity.

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder are mirrors a waste of time?

And I'll wager you thought him the handsomest thing that ever you saw in your life." "I did. And if you stuck him, and stuffed him, and hung him on the wall, I'd be very glad to admire him. But in life he's an arrogant pig, and I didn't care for him at all. 'Mind who you look at, wench.' Foo!

Who among us will celebrate Christmas correctly? Whoever finally lays down all power, all honor, all reputation, all vanity, all arrogance, all individualism beside the manger; whoever remains lowly and lets God alone be high; whoever looks at the child in the manger and sees the glory of God precisely in his lowliness.5 Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It's much easier for me to imagine a praying murderer, a praying prostitute, than a vain person praying. Nothing is so at odds with prayer as vanity.

Let him who cannot be alone beware of community... Let him who is not in community beware of being alone... Each by itself has profound perils and pitfalls. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and the one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation and despair.

On the other hand, every virtue and every good deed turns worthless if pride creeps into it - which happens whenever in some fashion we glory in our goodness.

What a waste of time it is to take so much care of this body, feeding it the most succulent dishes, dressing it in the most fashionable clothes, and trying to make it look younger than it really is. The body has no other destination than the cemetery where it will be burned, buried, or fed to the birds.

And no bathroom on earth will make up for marrying a bearded man you hate.

A peacock that rests on his feathers is just another turkey.

A peacock who rests on its feathers is just another turkey.

If I see something saggin', baggin', or draggin', I'm gone have it nipped, tucked, or sucked!

He didn't know why he was lying. Perhaps because his vanity was being engaged, and he wasn't above attending to his vanity.