Sayings about Vanity

Vanity blossoms but bears no fruit. ~ Nepalese Proverb

Every person admires his own character. ~ Turkish Proverb

Beauty’s sister is vanity, and its daughter lust. ~ Author Unknown

Vanity is the fruit of ignorance. It thrives most in subterranean places, never reached by the air of heaven and the light of the sun. ~ Alexander Ross

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead. ~ George Savile

Vanity makes men ridiculous, pride odious and ambition terrible. ~ Sir Richard Steele

Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man. ~ Robert Louis Stevenson

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it. ~ Mark Twain

Our vanity is the constant enemy of our dignity. ~ Anne Sophie Swetchine

The expression of vanity and self-love becomes less offensive, when it retains something of simplicity and frankness. ~ Alexander Von Humboldt

What is the vanity of the vainest man compared with the vanity which the most modest possesses when, in the midst of nature and the world, he feels himself to be “man”! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth. ~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

My vanity is excessive: wherever I sit is the head of the table. ~ H. L. Mencken

We speak little if not egged on by vanity. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Vanity is never at its full growth till it spreadeth into affectation, and then it is complete. ~ John Faucit Saville

Vanity is a vital aid to nature: completely and absolutely necessary to life. It is one of nature’s ways to bind you to the earth. ~ Elizabeth Smart

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!” ~ Thomas Woodrow Wilson

Vanity working on a weak head produces every sort of mischief. ~ Jane Austen

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain. ~ John Ruskin

The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

Vanity is a natural object of temptation to a woman. ~ Jonathan Swift

Alas for human nature, that the wounds of vanity should smart and bleed so much longer than the wounds of affection! ~ Thomas Babington Macaulay

A cultivated and decent man cannot be vain without setting a fearfully high standard for himself, and without despising and almost hating himself at certain moments. ~ Fyodor Dostoevsky

You’re so vain, you probably think this song is about you You’re so vain, I’ll bet you think this song is about you Don’t you? Don’t you? ~ Carly Simon

To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. ~ Max Beerbohm

There is more jealousy between rival wits, than rival beauties, for vanity has no sex. ~ Charles Caleb Colton

Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt. ~ Benjamin Franklin Quotes

Take from mankind their vanity and ambition, and where would be the heroes and patriots? ~ Seneca

To be stripped of all vanity, and stand forth a naked soul! ~ Muriel Strode

Vanity keeps persons in favor with themselves who are out of favor with all others. ~ William Shakespeare Quotes

There is no limit to the vanity of this world. Each spoke in the wheel thinks the whole strength of the wheel depends upon it. ~ Henry Wheeler Shaw

If you spend your life sparing people’s feelings and feeding their vanity, you get so you can’t distinguish what should be respected in them. ~ F. Scott Fitzgerald

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride. ~ Jonathan Swift

Vanity is the quicksand of reason. ~ George Sand

To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. A conceited man is satisfied with the effect he produces on himself. ~ Max Beerbohm

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast. ~ Logan Pearsall Smith

Vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness. ~ Edith Wharton

Vanity is becoming a nuisance, I can see why women give it up, eventually. But I’m not ready for that yet. ~ Margaret Atwood

Every man’s vanity ought to be his greatest shame; and every man’s folly ought to be his greatest secret. ~ Francis Quarles

Vanity is often so excessive, that those who are compelled to walk on crutches would fain make us believe they are raised on stilts. ~ Eliza Cook

You are vain and wicked — as a genius should be. ~ Günter Grass

Vanity is often the unseen spur. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

There is no limit to the vanity of this world, each spoke in the wheel thinks the whole strength of the wheel depends upon it. ~ H.W. Shaw

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life. ~ Lord Chesterfield

I am vain, or once was, and one of my vanities was to feign that I was not. ~ Lionel Shriver

What makes the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired: even I who write this, and you who read this. ~ Blaise Pascal

All is vanity, look you; and so the preacher is vanity too. ~ William Makepeace Thackeray

Vanity has many outlets in conversation, but great I is the front door. ~ John Thornton

Possibly, more people kill themselves and others out of hurt vanity than out of envy, jealousy, malice or desire for revenge. ~ Iris Murdoch

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity. ~ Henri Bergson

Every man has just as much vanity as he wants understanding. ~ Alexander Pope

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return. ~ George Eliot

Do not make a parade of your vanity. ~ Diogenes

He that hath nothing to feed on but vanity and lies must needs lie down in the bed of sorrow. ~ Anne Bradstreet

There is no vice or folly that requires so much nicety and skill to manage as vanity; nor any which by ill management makes so contemptible a figure. ~ Jonathan Swift

Vanity in its idler moments is benevolent, is as willing to give pleasure as to take it, and accepts as sufficient reward for its services a kind word or an approving smile. ~ Alexander Smith

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. ~ Nathaniel Hawthorne

Vanity is easily forgiven, for we are all vain, and even as we laugh at the weakness of others we feel that their vanity has touched the responding chord of our own. ~ Arthur Lynch

In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat. ~ David Hewson

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory. ~ Joseph Conrad

Vanity is the most despotic and iniquitous of masters, and I can never be the slave of my own vices. ~ George Sand

Vanity is a strange passion; rather than be out of a job it will brag of its vices. ~ Henry Wheeler Shaw

It is our own vanity that makes the vanity of others intolerable to us. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld

Vain is equivalent to empty; thus vanity is so miserable a thing, that one cannot give it a worse name than its own. It proclaims itself for what it is. ~ Chamfort

What makes vanity so insufferable to us, is that it hurts our own. ~ Francois De La Rochefoucauld

The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality. ~ Patricia Meyer Spacks

A man’s vanity is more fragile that you might think. It’s easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference. ~ Lisa Kleypas

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay. ~ François de la Rochefoucauld

Vanity is the foundation of the most ridiculous and contemptible vices–the vices of affectation and common lying. ~ Adam Smith

A vain man is a nauseous creature: he is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else, be it never so good or deserving. ~ William Penn

Vanity is the flatterer of the soul. ~ Edward Counsel