Top 100 Quotes About Vain
#1. I'm as vain as everybody else, but if I see a mirror I have to look at myself.
Alessandra Ambrosio
#2. Do my questions annoy you?"
He glanced at her, his surprise evident. "No. I'm far too vain to object; I am my favorite topic.
Meljean Brook
#3. Port is not for the very young, the vain and the active. It is the comfort of age and the companion of the scholar and the philosopher
Evelyn Waugh
#4. How can I write about this when I am afraid of not having time to finish and of stirring up all these thoughts in vain?
Vladimir Nabokov
#5. All at once I felt so vain, like a girl posturing for the crowds as she walks along, only to discover the street is empty.
Arthur Golden
#6. It is scarcely exaggeration to say that if one is not a little mad about Balzac at twenty, one will never live; and if at forty one can still take Rastignac and Lucien de Rubempre at Balzac's own estimate, one has lived in vain.
Willa Cather
#7. I have to be out there to sell these fights; it's not because I really enjoy getting made up and going to work every day. It's cool, it's an awesome job, but it's still a job. I'm doing it because it helps me make a living and not because I'm so extremely vain that I want to see my face everywhere.
Ronda Rousey
#8. Sometimes I believe that this less material life is our truer life, and that our vain presence on the terraqueous globe is itself the secondary or merely virtual phenomenon.
H.P. Lovecraft
#9. If I can in any way contribute to the Diversion or Improvement of the Country in which I live, I shall leave it, when I am summoned out of it, with the secret Satisfaction of thinking that I have not lived in vain.
Joseph Addison
#10. Death is a solemn thing, and never so much so as when we see it close at hand. The grave is a chilling, heart-sickening place, and it is vain to pretend it has no terrors.
J.C. Ryle
#11. And I know I said earlier that he was perfect but he wasn't perfect, far from it; he could be silly and vain and remote and often cruel and still we loved him, in spite of, because.
Donna Tartt
#12. When a musician . . . does not have the ability to bend the souls of listeners to where he wishes, his skill and knowledge may be considered null and vain. - Vincenzo Galilei, 1581
Bruce Haynes
#13. [Unbelievers] think they have made great efforts to get at the truth when they have spent a few hours in reading some book out of Holy Scripture, and have questioned some cleric about the truths of the faith. After that, they boast that they have searched in books and among men in vain.
Blaise Pascal
#14. Arrogant, pompous, obnoxious, vain, cruel, verbose, a showoff. I have been called all of these. Of course, I am.
Howard Cosell
#15. It's a vain hope to believe that people will voluntarily turn their back on government subsidies.
James Cook
#16. [Vanity] is an unrecognised form of stupidity, you have to forget the cosmic meaninglessness of all our acts to be able to be vain and that's a glaring form of stupidity.
Pascal Mercier
#17. The vain man makes a merit of misfortune, and triumphs in his disgrace.
William Hazlitt
#18. Connor laid her down on his bed and pulled the covers up over her. He warred with himself, but the struggle was in vain; he gave in and kissed her gently on the lips, saying, "Rest now, for tomorrow we may have a war on our hands," and he sat down in the chair she'd previously occupied.
Laura Hunsaker
#19. Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean - roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin - his control
Stops with the shore.
George Gordon Byron
#20. Man is indeed an object miraculously vain, various and wavering. It is difficult to found a judgement on him which is steady and uniform.
Michel De Montaigne
#21. Shall we mourn here deedless forever a shadow-folk mist-haunting dropping vain tears in the thankless sea
J.R.R. Tolkien
#22. I don't like myself. I'm not vain at all. I hate looking at myself - I always think I look ugly. Honest.
Bruno Tonioli
#23. How vain are all these Glories, all our Pains,
Unless good Sense preserve what Beauty gains:
That Men may say, when we the Front-box grace,
Behold the first in Virtue, as in Face!
Alexander Pope
#24. If morality had naturally no influence on human passions and actions, it were in vain to take such pains to inculcate it; and nothing would be more fruitless than that multitude of rules and precepts with which all moralists abound.
David Hume
#25. I run through the woods, at once applauding myself for my wit-"
"Well deserved, sir. Well deserved."
"And at the self instant, I am grinding my teeth because I am a vain, revenging idiot and shall be run down because of it.
M T Anderson
#26. There are many photos of Eisenstein. I think he was quite vain, and he liked photos of him. Being a virgin at 33 is strange now, but let's not be too high-minded about that.
Peter Greenaway
#27. Poverty is a bitter thing; but it is not as bitter as the existence of restless vacuity and physical, moral, and intellectual flabbiness, to which those doom themselves who elect to spend all their years in that vainest of all vain pursuits-the pursuit of mere pleasure as a sufficient end in itself.
Theodore Roosevelt
#28. I know of one semibarbarous zone whose librarians repudiate the "vain and superstitious habit" of trying to find sense in books, equating such a quest with attempting to find meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines on the palms of one's hand.
Jorge Luis Borges
#29. The joke I always make about myself is that I'm self-involved, but I'm not vain.
Lena Dunham
#30. Why not? Why not anything? If God ain't a God of why nots, than I say 'Why bother,' and I don't think that's takin his name in vain, I think it's tellin the truth about what people need.
Todd Johnson
#31. I will not torment you with vain wishes, which may seem purposely to ask for your thanks.
Jane Austen
#32. But little Mouse, you are not alone,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes of mice and men
Go often askew,
And leave us nothing but grief and pain,
For promised joy!
Still you are blest, compared with me!
Robert Burns
#33. Wordplay hides a key to reality that the dictionary tries in vain to lock inside every free word.
Julio Cortazar
#34. It is proof of sincerity, which I value above all things; as, between those who practice it, falsehood and malice work their efforts in vain.
Thomas Jefferson
#35. Man doth usurp all space,
Stares thee, in rock, bush, river, in the face.
Never thine eyes behold a tree;
'Tis no sea thou seest in the sea,
'Tis but a disguised humanity.
To avoid thy fellow, vain thy plan;
All that interests man, is man.
Henry Sutton
#36. If God had not intended that Women shou'd use their Reason, He wou'd not have given them any, 'for He does nothing in vain.'
Mary Astell
#37. It is vain to complain of fortune while we fail in policy and conduct.
Norm MacDonald
#38. Waste not a day in vain digression; with resolute, courageous trust seek every possible impression and make it firmly your posession you'll then work on because you must.
Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
#39. We take our international responsibilities very seriously and will not withdraw our troops from Iraq ... Otherwise, the victims of terror in Madrid will have died in vain.
Marek Belka
#40. The praise that comes of love does not make us vain, but humble rather. Knowing what we are, the pride that shines in our mother's eyes as she looks at us is about the most pathetic thing a man has to face, but he would be a devil altogether if it did not burn some of the sin out of him.
James M. Barrie
#41. Now, I'm not very vain. If I'd ever been, making my living covered in various grease and dirt mixtures would have cured me quickly. Still, I wasn't up to facing two sexy men when I had one eye swollen mostly shut and half of my face black and blue.
Patricia Briggs
#42. All wars are boyish, and are fought by boys, The champions and enthusiasts of the state: Turbid ardors and vain joys Not barrenly abate
Stimulants to the power mature, Preparatives of fate.
Herman Melville
#43. Dying in vain isn't really all that bad since nearly everyone does it. It's the living in vain you really have to watch out for.
Ross Thomas
#44. O! How vain and vile a passion is this fear! What base uncomely things it makes men do.
Ben Jonson
#45. Nothing is made in vain, but the fly came near it.
Mark Twain
#46. For who can move when fair Belinda fails? Not half so fix'd the Trojan could remain, 5 While Anna begg'd and Dido rag'd in vain. Then grave Clarissa graceful wav'd her fan; Silence ensu'd, and thus the nymph began.
Alexander Pope
#47. I have spent most of my life working with mental illness. I have been president of the world's largest association of mental-illness workers, and I am all for more funding for mental-health care and research - but not in the vain hope that it will curb violence.
Martin Seligman
#48. Blind unbelief is sure to err, And scan his work in vain; God is his own interpreter, And he will make it plain.
William Cowper
#49. How many precious things do we not already possess which others have not - have hardly an idea of! Let us enjoy these, then, and bless God that we are permitted to enjoy them, rather than importune His goodness with vain longings for more.
Jane Welsh Carlyle
#51. Do I hope in vain that you have been sent to me for a help in doubt and need?
J.R.R. Tolkien
#52. It's in vain, Trot, to recall the past, unless it works some influence upon the present.
Charles Dickens
#53. When the vain speaker has sat down, and the people say 'what a good speech,' it still takes an ounce to balance an ounce.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
#54. We may well ask, What causes induce us to believe in the existence of body? but 'tis vain to ask. Whether there be body or not? That is a point which we must take for granted in all our reasonings.
David Hume
#55. Endure what life God gives and ask no longer span;
Cease to remember the delights of youth, travel-wearied aged man;
Delight becomes death-longing if all longing else be vain.
William Butler Yeats
#56. Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it make us vain, in fact, of our modesty.
Louis Kronenberger
#57. In the mountains of wisdom no climbing is in vain.
Nhat Hanh
#58. The mountains are so cold
not just now but every year
crowded ridges breathe in snow
sunless forests breathe out mist
nothing grows until Grain Ears
leaves fall before Autumn Begins
a lost traveler here
looks in vain for the sky
Han-shan
#59. I knew what my father, more than anything else, wanted me to do. Seventeen, vain, and spoiled by poems, I prepared to enter a remote West Point. I would succeed there, it was hoped, as he had.
James Salter
#60. I've made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven't lived in vain.
Muhammad Ali
#61. Thy pride is but the prologue of thy shame; where vain-glory commands, there folly counsels; where pride rides, there shame lackeys.
Francis Quarles
#62. I feel like I am floating in plasma
I need a teacher or a lover
I need someone to risk being involved with me.
I am so vain
and I am so masochistic.
How can they coexist?
Francesca Woodman
#63. Too high an appreciation of our own talents is the chief cause why experience preaches to us all in vain.
Charles Caleb Colton
#64. Subtle persecution may happen to you in your office, school, or social gathering. You may not be "with it," or be "one of the crowd." No suffering that the Christian endures for Christ is ever in vain.
Billy Graham
#65. Christianity, democracy, science, education, wealth, and the cumulative inheritance of a thousand years, have not preserved us from the vain repetition of history.
Ralph Adams Cram
#66. My heart stole back across wide wastes of years To One who wandered by a lonely sea, And sought in vain for any place of rest: 'Foxes have holes, and every bird its nest. I, only I, must wander wearily, And bruise my feet, and drink wine salt with tears.' Poem:
Oscar Wilde
#67. His kingdom come! For this we pray in vain,
Unless He does in our affections reign.
How fond it were to wish for such a King,
And no obedience to his sceptre bring,
Whose yoke is easy, and His burthen light;
His service freedom, and His judgments right.
Edmund Waller
#68. Babaji's spiritual state is beyond human comprehension. The dwarfed vision of men cannot pierce to his transcendental star. One attempts in vain even to picture the avatar's attainment. It is inconceivable.
Sri Yukteswar Giri
#69. Sow truth, if thou the truth wouldst reap: Who sows the false shall reap the vain.
Horatius Bonar
#70. Odor of blood when Christ was slain Made all Platonic tolerance vain And vain all Doric discipline.
William Butler Yeats
#71. One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature.
Emile Durkheim
#72. 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.
Thomas Reid
#73. Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.
Philip Seymour Hoffman
#74. Money was evil, beauty vain, and both were transitory. Ambition was pride, desire for gain was avarice, desire of the flesh was lust, desire for honor, even for knowledge and beauty, was vainglory. Insofar as these diverted man from seeking the life of the spirit, they were sinful.
Barbara W. Tuchman
#75. To learn without thinking is labour in vain, to think without learning is desolation.
Confucius
#76. I'm not so vain as to believe that my involvement changes anything whatsoever.
Danny Glover
#77. Regrets ... Regrets are bootless. A vain trick of the mind. An impotent raging against what cannot be changed anyway. A distraction from the moment.
Andrew Ashling
#78. Falling from the sky like the rain,
And I fly and sing like the little birds...,
Movements that are not in vain,
Everything has a life made of words.
Ana Claudia Antunes
#79. He who knows himself well is mean and abject in his own sight, and takes no delight in the vain praise of men.
Thomas A Kempis
#80. Our religious needs are our deepest needs. There is no peace till they are satisfied and contented. The attempt to stifle them is in vain. If their cry be drowned by the noise of the world, they do not cease to exist. They must be answered.
Isaac Hecker
#81. Embraced, the lovers desperately try to fuse their insulated ecstasies into a single self-transcendence; in vain. By its very nature every embodied spirit is doomed to suffer and enjoy in solitude.
Aldous Huxley
#82. Do not have any other loves before me in your heart. Do not take my name in vain. Do not kill me. Observe me, and keep me holy.
Jonathan Safran Foer
#83. Torrents of blood have been spilt in the world in vain attempts of the secular arm to extinguish religious discord, by proscribing all differences in religious opinions.
James Madison
#84. Somehow they stayed that way
For those 5 days in May
Made all the stars around them shine
Funny how you can look in vain
Living on nerves and such sweet pain
The loneliness that cuts so fine
To find the face you've seen a thousand times
Blue Rodeo
#85. It is all in vain; you cannot give money to some members of the community but by taking it from others. If you desire to ruin the tax-payer, you may do so. But at least do not banter him by saying: In order to compensate your losses, I take from you again as much as I have taken from you already.
Frederic Bastiat
#87. It will be in vain to call to the rocks in the day of judgment - but our Rock attends to our cries.
Charles Haddon Spurgeon
#88. Not to be vain, but I have nice long legs, so I like to accentuate them. Find what part of your body you love most - it can be your arms, your chest, your legs - and emphasize that.
Khloe Kardashian
#89. Those who are vain have little ability to feel grateful.
Mark Helprin
#90. And he's right to say that every faction loses something when it gains a virtue: the Dauntless, brave but cruel; the Erudite, intelligent but vain; the Amity, peaceful but passive; the Candor, honest but inconsiderate; the Abnegation, selfless but stifling.
Veronica Roth
#91. It is vain for Mr. McCabe to say that a ballet is a part of him. He should be part of a ballet, or else he is only part of a man.
G.K. Chesterton
#92. The University of Santa Teresa was like a cemetery that suddenly begins to think, in vain. It also was like an empty dance club.
Roberto Bolano
#93. A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.
Jean De La Bruyere
#94. I know I don't want to take the Lord's name in vain, and I don't want to drop any F-bombs.
Larry The Cable Guy
#95. Feeling well that breathed words Would all be lost, unheard, and vain as swords Against the enchased crocodile, or leaps Of grasshoppers against the sun ...
John Keats
#96. If anybody tries to penetrate the past with the knife of the present will always act in vain. The past is invulnerable. Such attempts can only cause the present or the future to bleed." - Gregor Brand
Simon Schwartz
#97. Of the many messages found in the Hanukah story, the one that has always inspired me most is this: with a strong faith in the Almighty, nothing is impossible; and without the help of our Creator, we labor in vain.
Ronald Reagan
#98. Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else.
Simone De Beauvoir
#99. I feel that my work is not in vain, that it does have a place in society, even though it may not be considered that it has a place in society - it doesn't matter.
Yoko Ono
#100. It is in vain to look for the elevation of woman so long as she is degraded in marriage.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
