#Vanity Quotes

“If thou art rich, thou art poor; for, like an ass, whose back with ingots bows, thou bearest thy heavy riches but a journey, and death unloads thee.”

“O momentary grace of mortal men,Which we more hunt for than the grace of God!”

“We will all laugh at gilded butterflies.”

“Beauty is but a vain and doubtful good; a shining gloss that fadeth suddenly; a flower that dies when it begins to bud; a doubtful good, a gloss, a glass, a flower, lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour.”

“Why, what is pomp, rule, reign, but earth and dust? And, live we how we can, yet die we must.”

“Beauty's a doubtful good, a glass, a flower, Lost, faded, broken, dead within an hour; And beauty, blemish'd once, for ever's lost, In spite of physic, painting, pain, and cost.”

“It is not vain glory for a man and his glass to confer in his own chamber.”

“Conceit in weakest bodies works the strongest.”

“Pride can go without domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two rooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil, can travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well contented with fine saloons. But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last; a long way leading nowhere.--Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and the vain are gentle and giving.”

“That skull had a tongue in it, and could sing once: how the knave jowls it to the ground, as if it were Cain's jaw-bone, that did the first murder! It might be the pate of a politician, which this ass now o'er-reaches; one that would circumvent God, might it not?”

“Too much to know is to know naught but fame.”

“Now get you to my lady's chamber, and tell her, let her paint an inch thick, to this favour she must come; make her laugh at that.”

“Why, all delights are vain; but that most vain, Which, with pain purchas'd, doth inherit pain.”

“Every one at the bottom of his heart cherishes vanity; even the toad thinks himself good-looking,--"rather tawny perhaps, but look at his eye!”

“Light vanity, insatiate cormorant, Consuming means, soon preys upon itself.”

“But bear in mind your lover's wageIs what your looking-glass can show,And that he will turn green with rageAt all that is not pictured there.”

“The pain others give passes away in their later kindness, but that of our own blunders, especially when they hurt our vanity, never passes away”

“Things said or done long years ago Or things I did not do or say But thought that I might say or do, Weigh me down, and not a day But something is recalled, My conscience or my vanity appalled.”

“All natural goods perish. Riches take wings; fame is a breath; love is a cheat; youth and health and pleasure vanish.”

“Too many people spend money they haven't earned to buy things they don't want to impress people they don't like.”

“We love flattery, even though we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance enough to be courted.”

“Women play with their beauty as children do with their knives. They wound themselves with it.”

“We seem to be riding on the top of the highest mast of the tallest ship; and yet at the same time we know that nothing of this sort matters; love is not proved thus, nor great achievements completed thus; so that we sport with the moment and preen our feathers in it lightly.”

“Stupidity talks, vanity acts.”

“Yet some natures are too good to be spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into the profound, there is no danger from vanity. Solemn friends will warn them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flourish of trumpets, but they can afford to smile.”

“Thefts never enrich; alms never impoverish; murder will speak out of stone walls. The least admixture of a lie-for example, the taint of vanity, the least attempt to make a good impression, a favorable appearance-will instantly vitiate the effect.”

“The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.”

“True power and true politeness are above vanity.”

“No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes”

“Her life was a tissue of vanity and deceit.”

“Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism.”

“Vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women, health and peace, and is still nothing at last,--a long way leading nowhere.”

“Men always want to be a woman's first love. That is their clumsy vanity. We women have a more subtle instinct about things.”

“Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.”

“I never saw anybody take so long to dress, and with such little result.”

“Love does not traffic in a marketplace, nor use a huckster's scales. Its joy, like the joy of the intellect, is to feel itself alive. The aim of Love is to love: no more, and no less. You were my enemy: such an enemy as no man ever had. I had given you all my life, and to gratify the lowest and most contemptible of all human passions, hatred and vanity and greed, you had thrown it away. In less than three years you had entirely ruined me in every point of view. For my own sake there was nothing for me to do but to love you.”

“I don't at all like knowing what people say of me behind my back. It makes me far too conceited.”

“...many foolish persons, wanderers from other parts, have the vain fashion of graving their names and the obscure places whence they come, upon its stones, which is silly and marketh the doer for a fool.”

“It is only very ugly or very beautiful women who ever hide their faces .”

“To pace about, looking to obtain status, looking to attain 'importance' - I can think of nothing more ridiculous.”

“Through your rags I see your vanity.”

“It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.”

“When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.”

“There are no grades of vanity; there are only grades of ability in concealing it.”

“She is a peacock in everything but beauty!”

“Man that is of woman born is apt to be as vain has his mother.”

“When some men discharge an obligation, you can hear the report for miles around.”

“They say that you can't live by bread alone, but I can live on compliments.”

“If a man needs an elaborate tombstone in order to remain in the memory of his country, it is clear that his living at all was an act of absolute superfluity.”

“This autobiography of mine is a mirror, and I am looking at myself in it all the time. Incidentally I notice the people that pass along at my back - I get glimpses of them in the mirror - and whenever they say or do anything that can help advertise me and flatter me and raise me in my own estimation, I set these things down in my autobiography.”