Quotes About Vanity

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure. The real function of the mirror was otherwise. It was to make the woman connive in treating herself as, first and foremost, a sight.

The mirror was often used as a symbol of the vanity of woman. The moralizing, however, was mostly hypocritical. You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, you put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting Vanity, thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for your own pleasure.

Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

Now, I was, as they said, become godly; now I was become a right honest man. But, oh! when I understood that these were their words and opinions of me, it pleased me mighty well. For though, as yet, I was nothing but a poor painted Hypocrite, yet I loved to be talked of as one that was truly godly. I was proud of my Godliness, and, indeed, I did all I did, ether to be seen of, or to be well spoken of, by Man.

It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 'tis kept is lighter than vanity.

For so blindly do we all rush in the direction of self-love, that every one thinks he has a good reason for exalting himself and despising all others in comparison.

indeed, vanity joined with pride can be detected in the fact e(b)that, in seeking God, miserable men do not rise above themselves as they should, but measure him by the yardstick of their own carnal stupidity, and neglect sound investigation; thus out of curiosity they fly off into empty speculations. They do not therefore apprehend God as he offers himself, bbut imagine him as they have fashioned him in their own presumption.

Mingled vanity and pride appear in this, that when miserable men do seek after God, instead of ascending higher than themselves as they ought to do, they measure him by their own carnal stupidity, and neglecting solid inquiry, fly off to indulge their curiosity in vain speculation.

The human heart has so many recesses for vanity, so many lurking places for falsehood, is so shrouded by fraud and hypocrisy, that it often deceives itself.

Where do all the labyrinths of error in the world come from [the objector will continue], if not from the fact that when men follow their own minds they land in vanity and lies? So

But it is none the less true that men do not come to God by way of their own reason; neither do they in this way get near to him, because all their intelligence is but vanity. Whence

So infatuated are they by their own   splendor and magnificence, as to imagine that the whole world was made   only for them.

who wore her makeup so thick that you could have carved your initials into her face without drawing blood.

The problem is hedonism. The problem is the preening vanity and selfishness of 'coming out,' of parading private inclinations, of a kind that repel normal people, as if those inclinations were, all by themselves, marks of authenticity and virtue, of suffering and oppression.

When my mouth shall be filled with dust, and the worm shall feed, and feed sweetly upon me, when the ambitious man shall have no satisfaction if the poorest alive tread upon him, nor the poorest receive any contentment in being made equal to princes, for they shall be equal but in dust.

Thy sins and hairs may no man equal call, for as thy sins increase, thy hairs do fall.

Honor is but an empty bubble.

A fine lady is a squirrel-headed thing, with small airs and small notions; about as applicable to the business of life as a pair of tweezers to the clearing of a forest.

I am sensible that my keenness of temper, and a vanity to be distinguished for the day, make me too often splash in life.... I amresolved to restrain myself and attend more to decorum.

For this I see, that we, all we that live, Are but vain shadows, unsubstantial dreams.

Everything that seems imperishable tends to extinguishment.

Offended vanity is the great separator in social life.

If you haven't admired anybody in your whole life, you are the best candidate to be the world's greatest megalomaniac!

Natural amiableness is too often seen in company with sloth, with uselessness, with the vanity of fashionable life.