Quotes About Vain

But this is a wretched subterfuge, by which some people still allow themselves to defer the issue, and think that by a little fiddling with words they have solved that difficult problem on the solution of which thousands of years have worked in vain, and which therefore can hardly be found so completely on the surface.

If only there were not these vain ghostly hopes, these sudden inane shadows of possibilities, these unfulfilled conditionals of hopeless desire.

It was all that vain, egotistical insincerity of self-reproach. By blaming ourselves we take away the right of others to do the same

Schiller. A German dramatist of three centuries ago. In a play about Joan of Arc, he said, 'Against stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.' I'm no god and I'll contend no longer.

Some think the worst horrors of war might be avoided by an international agreement not to use atomic bombs. This is a vain hope.

My mind has touched the farthest horizons of mortal imagination and reaches ever outward to embrace infinity. There is no knowledge beyond my comprehension, no art or skill upon this entire planet that lies beyond the mastery of my hand. And yet, like Faust, I look in vain, I learn in vain. . . . For as long as I live, no woman will ever look on me in love.

It is very queer, but not the less true, that people are generally quite as vain, or even more so, of their deficiencies than of their available gifts; as was Hepzibah of this native inapplicability, so to speak, of the Pyncheons to any useful purpose.

Meanwhile the 3 a.m. drunks of the world would lay in their beds, trying in vain to sleep, and deserving that rest, if they could find it.

All writers are vain, selfish, and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand.

The shy girl she had known at Riverrun had grown into a woman who was by turns proud, fearful, cruel, dreamy, reckless, timid, stubborn, vain, and, above all inconstant.

His lips were as soft and red as the worms you found after a rain, and his eyes were vain and cruel. "I hate you," she whispered.

Weep no more, lady, weep no more, Thy sorrow is in vain, For violets plucked, the sweetest showers Will ne'er make grow again.

Life is a very sad piece of buffoonery, because we have ... the need to fool ourselves continuously by the spontaneous creation of a reality ... which, from time to time, reveals itself to be vain and illusory.

Against stupidity the very gods Themselves contend in vain.

He multiplieth words without knowledge.

The human bones are but vain lines dawdling, the whole universe a blank mold of stars.

It marked, further, the decay or going to pieces of his moral nature, a vain thing and a handicap in the ruthless struggle for existence.

Liberty without Learning is always in peril and Learning without Liberty is always in vain.

All false art, all vain wisdom, lasts its time but finally destroys itself, and its highest culture is also the epoch of its decay.

For, until the wisdom of men bear some proportion to the wisdom of God, their attempts to find out the structure of his works, by the force of their wit and genius, will be vain.

Courage was mine, and I had mystery, Wisdom was mine, and I had mastery: To miss the march of this retreating world Into vain citadels that are not walled.

If we were really unattached, we should escape all this pain of vain expectation, and could cheerfully do good work in the world. Never will unhappiness or misery come through work done without attachment. The world will go on with its happiness and misery through eternity.

Carpathian men are vain, dear brother-in-law," she proclaimed, "but not too bright." Jacques glared up at her with mock ferocity. "You have a mean streak in you, woman. Whatever happened to a soft, sweet, Yes, my lord, you're always right? " "Try the Dark Ages. Your age is showing.

so, then it must be that the thinkers will be forever subject to the men of brute force, and Plato's dream of a state ruled by philosophers will remain forever vain.