Famous Quotes & Sayings

Bette Davis

I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem.

Bill Vaughan

Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third.

Bertrand Russell

Vanity is a motive of immense potency.

Bertrand Russell

One of the troubles about vanity is that it grows with what it feeds on. The more you are talked about, the more you will wish to be talked about.

Bertrand Russell

I have been merely oppressed by the weariness and tedium and vanity of things lately: nothing stirs me, nothing seems worth doing or worth having done: the only thing that I strongly feel worth while would be to murder as many people as possible so as to diminish the amount of consciousness in the world. These times have to be lived through: there is nothing to be done with them.

Bertrand Russell

What vanity needs for its satisfaction is glory, and it's easy to have glory without power.

Blaise Pascal

Vanity is but the surface.

Blaise Pascal

We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction.

Blaise Pascal

There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation.

Blaise Pascal

Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra.

Blaise Pascal

What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire.

Blaise Pascal

We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us.

Blaise Pascal

Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off.

Blaise Pascal

How vain is painting, which is admired for reproducing the likeness of things whose originals are not admired.

Baruch Spinoza

It is sure that those are most desirous of honour or glory who cry out loudest of its abuse and the vanity of the world.

Arthur Koestler

Honor is decency without vanity.

Denis Diderot

Does not vanity itself cease to be blamable, is it not even ennobled, when it is directed to laudable objects, when it confines itself to prompting us to great and generous actions?

Denis Diderot

I have not the hope of being immortal, because the desire of it has not given me that vanity.

Alexander Alekhine

Chess is a matter of vanity.

Aldous Huxley

Our vanity makes us exaggerate the importance of human life; the individual is nothing; Nature cares only for the species.

Ali Khamenei

Today, America poses a threat to peace and security in the world. Therefore, the slogan "Death to America" is no longer used only by our people. Today, you see throughout the world people setting fire to the effigy of the American president and chanting the slogan "Death to America." This is because of the American regime's exaggerated demands, its arrogance, its vanity, and its desire to control, and because it is a pawn in the hands of the Zionists.

Vanity prevents improvement

Alexander Smith

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.

Aeschylus

They who prosper take on airs of vanity.

Adam Smith

The necessaries of life occasion the great expense of the poor. They find it difficult to get food, and the greater part of their little revenue is spent in getting it. The luxuries and vanities of life occasion the principal expense of the rich, and a magnificent house embellishes and sets off to the best advantage all the other luxuries and vanities which they possess ... It is not very unreasonable that the rich should contribute to the public expense, not only in proportion to their revenue, but something more than in that proportion.

Adam Smith

The great secret of education is to direct vanity to proper objects.

Abraham Cowley

Solitude can be used well by very few people. They who do must have a knowledge of the world to see the foolishness of it, and enough virtue to despise all the vanity.

Abraham Joshua Heschel

Mundus vult decipi'—the world wants to be deceived. To live without deception presupposes standards beyond the reach of most people whose existence is largely shaped by compromise, evasion and mutual accommodation. Could they face their weakness, their vanity and selfishness, without a mask?

Conan O'Brien

Vanity Fair magazine reports that former President Clinton and Al Gore haven't spoken to each other since George W. Bush's inauguration. Not only that, Bill and his wife, Hillary, haven't spoken since Richard Nixon's inauguration.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.

Danny Boyle

What you do is take the power [popularity] gives you - which is very temporary and minor but significant - and use it. The danger is that you use it on a vanity project that no one wants to watch.

William Shakespeare

Shine out fair sun, till I have bought a glass, That I may see my shadow as I pass.

Anne Morrow Lindbergh

The nicest gifts are those left, nameless and quiet, unburdened with love, or vanity, or the desire for attention.