Home › V › Vanity

Vanity: Quotations from Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations

It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where it is kept is "lighter than vanity."— BUNYAN — Pilgrim's Progress. Pt. I.

Ecclesiastes said that "all is vanity," Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity : In short, all know, or very soon may know it.— BYRON — Don Juan. Canto VII. St. 6.

Sooth'd with the sound, the king grew vain : Fought all his battles o'er again; And thrice he routed all his foes, and thrice he slew the slain.— DRYDEN — Alexander's Feast. L. 66.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.— GEORGE ELIOT — Daniel Deronda. Bk. I. Ch. X.

Those who live on vanity must not unreasonably expect to die of mortification.— MRS. ELLIS — Pictures of Private Life.

Second Series. The Pains of Pleasing. Ch. III. How many saucy airs we meet, From Temple Bar to Aldgate street!— GAY — The Barley-Mow and Dunghill. L. 1.

Vain? Let it be so! Nature was her teacher, What if a lovely and unsistered creature Loved her own harmless gift of pleasing feature.— O. W. HOLMES — Iris, Her Book.

The Professor at the Breakfast-Table. X. What is your sex's earliest, latest care, Your heart's supreme ambition? To be fair.— LORD LYTTLETON — Advice to a Lady. L. 17.

And not a vanity is given in vain.— POPE — Essay on Man. Ep. II. L. 290.

Ce qui nous rend la vanité des autres insupportable, c'est qu'elle blesse la nôtre. That which makes the vanity of others unbearable to us is that which wounds our own.— LA ROCHEFOUCAULD — Maximes. 389.

Il est difficile d'estimer quelqu'un comme il veut l'être. It is difficult to esteem a man as highly as he would wish. f. LXVII. On parle peu quand la vanité ne fait pas parler. We say little if not egged on by vanity.— LA ROCHEFOUCAULD — Maximes. 137.