Vanity

“ All human beings—Grant, you, I, all of us, everybody—are brimful of vanity. It slops over a little one way and we call it like. It slops over the other way and we call it dislike—hate—loathing—according to the size of the slop. Now, I'm not here to deal with vanity, but with good sense. ”

“ How many people run into extravagance, and waste their means, merely from vanity! How many young men commence a career of folly and wickedness, impelled by the miserable vanity of daring what others dare! ”

“ Just as a man who takes pleasure in the conquest of feminine hearts invariably finds himself at last ensnared by the very passion which he has been using simply for the gratification of his vanity, I am inclined to think that the element of vanity enters, to a degree, into every phase of book collecting; vanity is, I take it, one of the essentials to a well-balanced character—not a prodigious vanity, but a prudent, well-governed one. ”

“ The demon of vanity is, assuredly, a very subtle one, and I ask myself whether perchance I have fallen a victim to it. If men of taste reproach me with having shown myself to be a true representative of the age while pretending not to be so, I beg them to rest well assured that this will not happen to me again. ”

“ You love vanity, and seek after leasing, or lying, or that which is a lie. You are yourselves vain and lying, and you love to be so." Or, "You set your hearts upon that which will prove, at last, but vanity and a lie." Those that love the world, and seek the things that are beneath, love vanity, and seek lies; as those also do that please themselves with the delights of sense, and portion themselves with the wealth of this world; for these will deceive them, and so ruin them. ”

“ ONE CERTAINTY. SONNET. Vanity of vanities, the Preacher saith, All things are vanity. The eye and ear Cannot be filled with what they see and hear. Like early dew, or like the sudden breath Of wind, or like the grass that withereth, Is man, tossed to and fro by hope and fear: So little joy hath he, so little cheer, Till all things end in the long dust of death. To-day is still the same as yesterday, To-morrow also even as one of them ”

“ IT IS astonishing to me how very many contemptible, petty vanities are lodged in the crevices of my genius. My genius itself is one grand good vanity—but it is not contemptible. And even those little vanities—though they are contemptible, I do not hold them in contempt by any means. ”

“ The young leaves shoot, the sere leaves fall, And the old gives way to the new, While the preacher cries, "'Tis vanity all, And vexation of spirit, too." Now over my head the vapours curl From the bowl of the soothing clay, In the misty forms that eddy and whirl My thoughts are flitting away; Yes, the preacher's right, 'tis vanity all, But the sweeping rebuke he showers On vanities all may heaviest fall On vanities worse than ours. We have no wish to exaggerate The worth of the sports we prize, Some toil for their Church, and some for their State, And some for their merchandise ”

“ Vanity, vanity is the thing,—not theirs, poor devils, but that of the rich. If you then, gentlemen, will but display a little of this praiseworthy vanity, and buy, you will earn a blessing even without meaning it. ”

“ I fear they indulge a man's vanities in silence, suffer him to encroach, encourage him on to be an ass, and send him forth again, not merely contemned for the moment, but radically more contemptible than when he entered. But if I have a flushed, blustering fellow for my opposite, bent on carrying a point, my vanity is sure to have its ears rubbed, once at least, in the course of the debate. ”

“ Nobody knows how. That teaches us a grand lesson. Vanity of vanities; all is vanity and vexation of the spirit. If we have seen all this, then we become disgusted with this world and all it offers us. ”

“ Is not vanity one of the great virtues?" asked the King, in a surprised voice.
"My mama says people ought not to think themselves nice, or pretty," said the child. "With us, to be vain is a fault, and we are taught to be modest and unassuming." ”

“ Ay, ay, vanity is truly the motive-power that moves Humanity, and it is flattery that greases the wheels. If you want to win affection and respect in this world, you must flatter people. Flatter high and low, and rich and poor, and silly and wise. You will get on famously. Praise this man's virtues and that man's vices. Compliment everybody upon everything, and especially upon what they haven't got. Admire guys for their beauty, fools for their wit, and boors for their breeding. ”

“ I have already observed, that vanity is the great and universal mover among all ranks and degrees of people in this nation; and as they take no pains to conceal or controul it, they are hurried by it into the most ridiculous and indeed intolerable extravagance. ”

“ How plainly is vanity of vanities written upon that glorious science, ay, glorious even in its weakness, which once read the history of the earth in the skies, which asked from the stars the mysteries of their shining chronicles, and bade them reveal the future, from the mighty annals of nations and peoples down to the tender secrets of one lonely and beating heart. ”

“ Attention, whether from male or female, tickles the vanity, and although I have a reasonable, and, I hope, not unwholesome regard, for the gratification of my other appetites, I confess that this same vanity is by far the most poignant of the whole. ”

“ Then said I in my heart, that this also is vanity.
16 For of the wise man, even as of the fool, there is no remembrance for ever; seeing that in the days to come all will have been long forgotten. And how doth the wise man die even as the fool!
17 So I hated life, because the work that is wrought under the sun was grievous unto me; for all is vanity and a striving after wind.
18 And I hated all my labor wherein I labored under the sun, seeing that I must leave it unto the man that shall be after me. ”

“ To be rotting while even the clay that one’s fingers moulded into life-like shapes is admired—this makes the cup of life an insipid draught, and the wise man cries it is vanity, all vanity, after all. ”

“ Do you not dance in public? What renders you more conspicuous? Do you not dress to be admired, and walk to be observed? Why then this fantastical scruple, unjustified by reason, unsupported by analogy? Is folly only to be published? Is vanity alone to be exhibited? Oh slaves of senseless contradiction! Oh feeble followers of yet feebler prejudice! daring to be wicked, yet fearing to be wise; dauntless in levity, yet shrinking from the name of virtue! ”

“ Oh, maybe you won’t be so bad because you haven’t got as much vanity. Mine’s insatiable, I guess, and good old Mother Nature taught me the trick of covering it up with the don’t-care-a-damn air combined with the come-hither eye. That does the trick. And they get what hurt’s going. I don’t. You’ll cultivate men, thinking it’s your vanity waked up, or mere youth, or because it’s time to have a fling, but what you really are after is the one and only man. ”

“ Vanity, vanity, nothing but vanity! even in the presence of death, and among men ready to die for an exalted idea. Is not vanity the characteristic trait, the destructive ill of our age? Why has this weakness not been recognized hitherto, just as small-pox or cholera has been recognized? ”

“ And then there was still a grain of vanity in her, dormant, it was true, of late, but still an eternal, ineradicable germ: the vanity inherent in her, the vanity of thinking that her son would pursue that most eminent, honourable and illustrious career. ”

“ There seems a kind of vanity in it."
"It is not vanity," she said; "it is worse. It is what has grown out of my misery and his. I tell you it is in your blood."
A flush rose to his face, and a stubborn look settled upon him. ”

“ I felt myself colour up, and I laughed out, 'Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, all is vanity!' Yet certainly God has set before us the things of earth in order that we may admire and find them out ”

“ Those fine, sturdy John Bulls, who "hate flattery, sir," "Never let anybody get over me by flattery," &c. &c., are very simply managed. Flatter them enough upon their absence of vanity, and you can do what you like with them.
After all, vanity is as much a virtue as a vice. It is easy to recite copy-book maxims against its sinfulness, but it is a passion that can move us to good as well as to evil. Ambition is only vanity ennobled. We want to win praise and admiration—or Fame as we prefer to name it—and so we write great books, and paint grand pictures, and sing sweet songs ”

“ For so much as is spent in the vanity of dress, is so much laid out to fix vanity in our minds. So much as is laid out for idleness and indulgence, is so much given to render our hearts dull and sensual. So much as is spent in state and equipage, is so much spent to dazzle your own eyes, and render you the idol of your own imagination. And so in every thing, when you go from reasonable wants, you only support some unreasonable temper, some turn of mind, which every Christian is called upon to renounce. ”

“ Charms which, like flowers, lie on the surface—such as preserve figure and dress—conduce to vanity. On the contrary, those excellencies which lie down, like gold, and are discovered with difficulty—such as profoundness of intellect and morality—leave their possessors modest and humble. Vanity ceases to be blameless, even if it is not ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it prompts us to great and generous actions. ”

“ It is wonderful to reflect how vanity blinds common sense, and turns all the power of reason and judgment to nothing. Art was so thoroughly infatuated by his own vanity, that he was utterly incapable of seeing through the gross and selfish flattery with which they plied him. ”

“ There was the appeal of weak human heart to weak human heart in his gaze. Her lip quivered. A brief struggle between vanity and love—and vanity, the stronger, the strongest force in her life, dominating it since earliest babyhood and only seeming to give way to love when love came—it was vanity that won. ”

“ You will not deny that moralist and philosopher, from Solomon down to our own days, have all been right in pointing out the vanity of all things. Vanitas vanitatis, my dear Count, has been the stamp fixed by every great mind that the world has yet produced upon the objects of human enjoyment. ”

“ I can believe such an instance—can believe love taking strong root amid cruelty, poverty, suffering, and danger, rather than in the withering atmosphere of this crowded city—this miscalled social, but really heartless, life; where petty interests distract the mind, and mean desires absorb the heart. From the beginning of the show to the end, vanity is the sole stimulus and reward of action—vanity, that never looks beyond the present. ”

“ As vanity is itself a subjective affection, but one which can be awakened only in society, it uses the imagination to suppose cases, plan unlimited schemes, devise types of self-decoration and dreams of superiority, distinction, power, success, and glory. ”

“ There was a girl's vanity, in the first place—almost a child's vanity, fostered by pernicious teaching of frivolous companions—afterwards there was a foolish romantic incertitude—vanity still perhaps—that led me to trust in you, and to give up one who loved me, and for whom I ought to have died rather than have deserted—but there was no love! ”

“ To the vanity I plead guilty,—no man is more intensely vain than I am; but my vanity is set on having it known of me that I am a good master, not in having it said of me that I am a smooth author. My vanity is never more wounded than in being called a fine writer, meaning—that nobody need mind what I say. ”

“ In short, whatever order of mankind we contemplate, we shall perceive that the portion of vanity allotted us by nature, when it is not corrected by a sound judgement, and rendered subservient to useful purposes, is sure either to degrade or mislead us. ”

“ IT IS vanity to seek perishing riches, and to trust in them. Vanity, also, it is, to court honors, and to lift up one’s self on high. It is vanity to follow the desires of the flesh; and to desire that, for which hereafter there must be a heavy penalty. ”

“ What connection could, after all, subsist between beauty and vanity in one who neither had rivals nor aught to rival for? Doubtless she enjoyed her beauty,—the more, as her taste was pure of conventional falsities. ”

“ For what analysis will ever disengage and measure the ingredient of personal vanity which enters into and combines with disinterested enthusiasm in all public exhibitions of extravagant and unusual forms of devout emotion? ”

“ Vanity, that source of many of our follies, and of some of our crimes, has sunk many a man into company, in every light infinitely, below himself, for the sake of being the first man in it. There he dictates, is applauded, admired; and, for the sake of being the Coryphceus of that wretched chorus, disgraces and disqualifies himself soon for any better company. ”

“ Now this idea of perfection is, in poetry, more refined than in other kinds of writing; and because more refined, therefore more difficult; and because more difficult, therefore more rarely attained; and the non-attainment of it is, as I have said, the source of our vanity. Hence the poetic clan are more obnoxious to vanity than others. And from vanity consequently flows that great sensibility of disrespect, that quick resentment, that tinder of the mind that kindles at every spark, and justly marks them out for the genus irritabile among mankind. ”

“ The shades are almost imperceptible by which the love of admiration deepens into vanity, and vanity into imprudence, and imprudence, especially if thwarted by advice and encouraged by opportunity, into crime. ”

“ Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man: but about the sixth month, when I already owed near two hundred dollars to Pinkerton, and half as much again in debts scattered about Paris, I awoke one morning with a horrid sentiment of oppression, and found I was alone: my vanity had breathed her last during the night. ”

“ Another most pernicious effect is, the deadening within the heart of the feeling of love, which is the root of all influence; for it is an extraordinary fact, that vanity acts as a sort of refrigerator on all men—on the possessor of it, and on the observer. ”