"Vanity" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... earlier General Bonaparte had declared that what the French wanted was glory and the gratification of their vanity; of liberty, he said, they knew nothing. The Emperor Napoleon, in one of his spoken musings, applied the same conception to all continental Europeans, saying that there were everywhere a few men who knew what freedom was and longed to secure it; but that the masses needed ...
— The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte - Vol. III. (of IV.) • William Milligan Sloane
... always seemed to see more in what she said than she herself saw. Dorothea had little vanity, but she had the ardent woman's need to rule beneficently by making the joy of another soul. Hence the mere chance of seeing Will occasionally was like a lunette opened in the wall of her prison, giving her a glimpse of the sunny air; and this pleasure began to nullify her original ...
— Middlemarch • George Eliot
... The innate vanity of the woman might have led one to suppose that she would let the years pass unnoticed, but not so. The old, time-honored custom of the country must be observed lest her friends might say: Senora Fernandez ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown
... born of this marriage in 1782 was sickly and delicate, ugly of feature, with a nose even then large enough to be absurd, her father's nose in a face as thin as a man's wrist. She had nothing of what her parents' vanity would have liked her to have. After making a fiasco on the piano at the age of five, at a concert given by her mother in her salon, she was relegated to the society of the servants. Except for a moment in the morning, she never went near her mother, who ...
— Germinie Lacerteux • Edmond and Jules de Goncourt
... recluse,— Still less as one who hates mankind—, Do I thy peaceful precincts choose; But as a student, who can find No joys in Vanity's gay Fair That for an instant can compare With those ...
— Poems • John L. Stoddard
... countenance, which evidenced the interior spiritual joy of his soul; he bade them sit down, and asked them whence they came. They said, from Jerusalem. He then made them a long discourse, in which he first endeavored to show his own baseness; after which he explained the means by which pride and vanity are to be banished out of the heart, and all virtues to be acquired. He related to them the examples of many monks, who, by suffering their hearts to be secretly corrupted by vanity, at last fell also into scandalous irregularities; as of one, who, after a most ...
— The Lives of the Fathers, Martyrs, and Principal Saints - January, February, March • Alban Butler
... as whilom many a doer like thee hath done Leftest this worldly house without reproach or blame; * Ah, may th' ex change secure thee every benison! Thou west from hostile onset shield and firm defence, * For us to baffle shafts and whistling spears to shun. I see this world is only cheat and vanity, * Where man naught else must seek but please the Truthful One: Th' Empyrean's Lord allow thee bower of heavenly bliss, * And wi' thy faithful friends The Guide show goodly wone: I bid thee last good e'en with sigh of bitter grief, * Seeing the West in woe ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... anecdote showing that caddies are much the same the whole world over. An English golfer was playing at Pau and had a French caddie attending upon him. He made one particularly fine approach shot, and, as golfers will at such times, he turned round to the boy with excusable vanity for applause. But the boy's English vocabulary so far comprised only two words which he had heard uttered on several occasions, but the sense of which he did not understand. Feeling sure, however, that they must be ...
— The Complete Golfer [1905] • Harry Vardon
... to attain anything difficult, he cannot afford to indulge in vanity or self-satisfaction; for action can be kept true to its end only when the least obliquity is marked and corrected. Hence the strong man does not attribute his failure to fortune or to his amiable virtues, but to his folly; for he knows that to be the crucial fault which it lies ...
— The Moral Economy • Ralph Barton Perry
... may, like the measles or the South Sea Bubble, run its course and that will end it; on the other hand, it may grow to such proportions that it will shut out all human endeavor and bring commercial pursuits to a complete standstill. In any case its foundations are laid in vanity and egotism, and that ...
— A Fantasy of Mediterranean Travel • S. G. Bayne
... Anna turned that glaring light in which she was seeing everything on to her relations with him, which she had hitherto avoided thinking about. "What was it he sought in me? Not love so much as the satisfaction of vanity." She remembered his words, the expression of his face, that recalled an abject setter-dog, in the early days of their connection. And everything now confirmed this. "Yes, there was the triumph of success in him. Of course there was love too, but the chief element was the pride ...
— Anna Karenina • Leo Tolstoy
... She's a dairy maid I married to a diamond thief by mistake. My ignorance of women is complete. Sally Walker's duplicity wasn't necessary to convince me of that but your own conduct completely crushed my vanity." ...
— Blacksheep! Blacksheep! • Meredith Nicholson
... neck under his clothes, and he usually carries more than one. Women, of course, always wear them, which may be because a woman likes to surround herself with pretty things, and, if she can say that they protect her, she has a reason, unconnected with vanity, which she may be apt to profess is her true reason for wearing ornaments. The same applies to men who, though less in the habit of wearing ornaments, are, as has been often remarked, no less vain than women. This may be called the ornamental view and may account ...
— Diversions in Sicily • H. Festing Jones
... he hath undertaken from a spirit of boyish unsteadiness, the entire body of Brahmanas here will be rendered ridiculous in the eyes of the assembled monarchs. Therefore, forbid this Brahmana that he may not go to string the bow which he is even now desirous of doing from vanity, childish daring, or mere unsteadiness.' Others replied, 'We shall not be made ridiculous, nor shall we incur the disrespect of anybody or the displeasure of the sovereigns. Some remarked, 'This handsome youth is even like the trunk of ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 1 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli
... to be an odious breach of faith. It resulted necessarily from his duplicity, his parricidal projects, and his English connexions. The nomination of Joseph as King of Spain and the Indies, had been universally attributed to the excessive vanity of Napoleon, who, as it was supposed, was determined to drop a crown upon the head of every member of the imperial family. But now opinion changed. King Joseph's promotion was felt to have been caused by the necessity of placing Spain for ever out of the reach of English influence. ...
— Memoirs of the Private Life, Return, and Reign of Napoleon in 1815, Vol. I • Pierre Antoine Edouard Fleury de Chaboulon
... and therefore rejoiced without compunction in seeing her favourite scheme for her darling restored to her more perfect than ever. Maurice, without having more than the minimum quantity of masculine vanity, had great faith in the virtues of perseverance and fidelity, and took the full benefit of Lucia's delight at seeing him; while Lucia herself was just simply glad—so glad that for an hour or two she quite forgot ...
— A Canadian Heroine - A Novel, Volume 3 (of 3) • Mrs. Harry Coghill
... mind, Nelson and Collingwood particularly. She is frequently mentioned in their letters as being sure to have much sympathy in their work. A late biographer of the Earl wrote: "She had the penetration to appreciate Nelson through the cloud of personal vanity and silly conceit which caused him to be lightly esteemed in London society." Her "bull-dog" she used playfully to call him. She visited Gibbon at Lausanne, in 1795, and he writes: "She is a charming woman who, with sense and spirit, has the playfulness ...
— Some Old Time Beauties - After Portraits by the English Masters, with Embellishment and Comment • Thomson Willing
... admire it, shows that your vanity will grow with prosperity, making you detestable in the sight of ...
— 10,000 Dreams Interpreted • Gustavus Hindman Miller
... been for all of them if Ball had never been placed in Number 7; happier still if he had never come to Roslyn School. Backward in work, overflowing with vanity at his supposed good looks, of mean disposition and feeble intellect, he was the very worst specimen of a boy that Eric had ever seen. Not even Barker so deeply excited Eric's repulsion and contempt. ...
— Eric, or Little by Little • Frederic W. Farrar
... yet some shades darker, and, in becoming a little thinner, it had become a little more gracefully wavy. His skin had the pearly tint which that of elderly men sometimes assumes, and the lines which time had traced upon it were too delicate for the name of wrinkles. He had never had any personal vanity, and there was no consciousness in his good ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... was irreproachable; in all the virtues of the Catholic Church he walked without spot or stain; and the system to which he had surrendered himself had left to him of the common selfishnesses of mankind his enormous vanity alone. But that system had extinguished also in him the human instincts, the genial emotions by which theological theories stand especially in need to be corrected. He belonged to a class of persons at all times numerous, in whom enthusiasm takes the place of understanding; ...
— The Reign of Mary Tudor • James Anthony Froude
... action, not by inflating themselves with a belief in the pre-eminent importance and greatness of their own times. They do not talk of their mission, nor of interpreting their age, nor of the coming Poet; all this, they know, is the mere delirium of vanity; their business is not to praise their age, but to afford to the men who live in it the highest pleasure which they are capable of feeling. If asked to afford this by means of subjects drawn from the age itself, they ask what special fitness the present age has for supplying them: they ...
— English Critical Essays - Nineteenth Century • Various
... inclined to laugh, knowing Elsley's petulance and vanity: but the impossibility of guessing ...
— Two Years Ago, Volume II. • Charles Kingsley
... capacities, when they see learned men's works like the first letter of a patent or limited book, which though it hath large flourishes, yet it is but a letter? It seems to me that Pygmalion's frenzy is a good emblem or portraiture of this vanity; for words are but the images of matter, and except they have life of reason and invention, to fall in love with them is all one as to fall in love ...
— The Advancement of Learning • Francis Bacon
... late you have been more retiring than formerly, and I have even thought that you avoided me sometimes, thinking I fear, that my attentions (to use a common phrase) meant nothing, but that is not the case, I am not one of those, who merely to gratify their own vanity, would endeavor to win affection, which they do not,—cannot return. No dearest, I love you truly, unalterably,—will you then accept my love, and give me the right and the inexpressibly pleasure to share all your joys and sorrows. Tell me dear Isabel, will you ...
— Isabel Leicester - A Romance • Clotilda Jennings
... hitherto dealt with natural history. For I admit nothing but on the faith of eyes, or at least of careful and severe examination; so that nothing is exaggerated for wonder's sake, but what I state is sound and without mixture of fables or vanity. All received or current falsehoods also (which by strange negligence have been allowed for many ages to prevail and become established) I proscribe and brand by name; that the sciences may be no more troubled with them For it has been well observed ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot
... pass unnoticed. Almost as soon as the smoke of battle had cleared away, a careful description of his exploit was prepared for circulation, and it was no fault of the compiler if the account he gave was not sufficiently flattering to the young prince's vanity. Conde's body had not been four days in the hands of the Roman Catholics, before Anjou wrote to his brother, the King of France, announcing the fact that he had already despatched messengers with the precious document to the Pope and the Duke of ...
— History of the Rise of the Huguenots - Volume 2 • Henry Baird
... the earth in a measure, and weighed the mountains in scales, and the hills in a balance." Aye, and more, yet closer still does this providence approach us in our affairs. "By Him kings reign and princes decree judgment. He bringeth the princes to nothing; He maketh the judges of the earth as vanity." Even closer yet, for without His permission a sparrow cannot fall to the ground; and so intimate is He with us, that He knoweth the number of the hairs of the head. Now all this kind of Bible instruction is intended to teach ...
— The Lost Ten Tribes, and 1882 • Joseph Wild
... juvat gloria lata quam magna. I have great satisfaction in considering the delicacy and discernment of those readers I have, and in ascribing my want of popularity to the ignorance or inattention of those I have not. All the world may forsake an author, but vanity will never forsake him. Yet, notwithstanding so sincere a confession, I was once induced to show my indignation against the public, by discontinuing my endeavours to please; and was bravely resolved, ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... hast known or seen this girl! Take all the faults that on this broad earth dwell, Folly and vanity, and weakness, too, Cunning and boldness, coquetry and greed— Put them together and thou hast this woman; And if, enigma thou, not magic art, Shouldst call her power to charm me, I'll agree, And were ashamed, were't ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. VI. • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... young Bernardo Tolomei's head was turned to vanity by these honours showered upon him in his earliest manhood. Yet, after a short period of aberration, he rejoined his confraternity and mortified his flesh by discipline and strict attendance on the poor. The time had come, however, when he should choose a career suitable to his high rank. ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... the same day, but at a later hour. Adieu, then, my dearest love; I must leave off for want of time and paper; and if I do not repeat ten thousand times that I love you, it is not from want of affection, but from my having the vanity to hope that I have already convinced you of it. The night is far advanced, the heat intense, and I am devoured by gnats; but the best countries, as you perceive, have their ...
— Memoirs, Correspondence and Manuscripts of General Lafayette • Lafayette
... 1724, In the Hearing and at the Desire of certain Pirates [Archer and White], a little before their Execution, To which there is added, A more private Conference of a Minister with them (Boston, 1724). With his usual insufferable vanity, he indicates that the capture of the pirates was widely attributed to his public prayer against pirates on Sunday, Apr. 26: "Behold, before the week was out, there comes in a Vessel wherein" were the captive pirates. But the victorious mutiny against the pirates occurred on Apr. 18, ...
— Privateering and Piracy in the Colonial Period - Illustrative Documents • Various
... stranger dared in her very presence to find fault with wealth and splendour, and to predict its probable destruction. Moreover she thought it rude in him that he had no word of praise for her own brilliant beauty, nor a glance of astonishment for her gorgeous palace. Her offended vanity induced her at last to force from him the praise he so obstinately withheld. "O, gracious Lady," said he rather reluctantly, "marvellous indeed is your home and fit for a queen. If you travelled far and near, you could not find its equal. But, ...
— Legends of the Rhine • Wilhelm Ruland
... not without vanity," Peter judicially continued. "But every naturally beautiful woman has a right to that." And I proved Peter's contention by turning shell-pink even under my sunburn and feeling a warm little runway of pleasure creep ...
— The Prairie Mother • Arthur Stringer
... the jingo. An Ambassador need not depend on outside approval; his work is done in quiet and solitude. The Kaiser, on the contrary, conducts his foreign policy in the glaring limelight of publicity; and whenever he has been criticized by experts, his vanity has only too often been tempted to appeal to popular passion and to gain popular applause. For that reason, and entirely apart from his indiscretions, the bare fact that the Kaiser has become his own Foreign Secretary has lessened ...
— German Problems and Personalities • Charles Sarolea
... himself, is inscribed on a sarcophagus in the church-yard at Sunning Hill, in which he describes himself—what his friends admitted to be truth—a politician without ambition, a writer without vanity. ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 78, April 26, 1851 • Various
... had kept his eyes on the ground. He did not care to remember that time. The work that he did was intermittent, and between his industrious spasms he read a book. He had a shelf at hand where he kept certain volumes—Walt Whitman, Vanity Fair, Austin Dobson, Landor's Imaginary Conversations, and a rather choice collection of Old Mission literature. He had had it in mind that he might some day write a play with Santa Barbara as a background, but he had ...
— The Gay Cockade • Temple Bailey
... which look more prosperous. Much must be done to save the British Government from an infamous and daring combination, which might have been yielded to by a more pusillanimous minister; but could only be met by one confident in his character and conduct. Do not think this the language of vanity; the times have been, and still are much too serious for such a boyish passion: I feel that the dearest interests of both kingdoms are at stake, and nothing but firmness can save it. I have been insulted, I may be beat, but I ...
— Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third, Volume 2 (of 2) - From the Original Family Documents • The Duke of Buckingham
... but I was set to polish the pewter and copper,—indeed, my mother had taught me that,—and he watched jealously lest any dimness come on them. I sometimes wondered at all this, as he had so lately counted these matters of adornment and prettiness and such as less than nothing, and vanity, as the preacher has it. But I think his great grief put a sacredness, as it were, over everything that had been hers, and all her ways seemed heavenly to him now, even though he had frowned at them (never at her, Melody, my dear! ...
— Rosin the Beau • Laura Elizabeth Howe Richards
... impelling cause. For when a man is uplifted inwardly by arrogance, it often results that outwardly he boasts of great things about himself; though sometimes a man takes to boasting, not from arrogance, but from some kind of vanity, and delights therein, because he is a boaster by habit. Hence arrogance, which is an uplifting of self above oneself, is a kind of pride; yet it is not the same as boasting, but is very often its cause. For this ...
— Summa Theologica, Part II-II (Secunda Secundae) • Thomas Aquinas
... snow-flake. The bearer looked nobler than the rider. Though truly vivacious, tumultuous, ostentatious little Flask would now and then stamp with impatience; but not one added heave did he thereby give to the negro's lordly chest. So have I seen Passion and Vanity stamping the living magnanimous earth, but the earth did not alter her tides and her seasons for that. Meanwhile Stubb, the third mate, betrayed no such far-gazing solicitudes. The whales might have made one ...
— Moby-Dick • Melville
... to see how some Christian parents, who live in humble life, seek to ape, in their children, the empty sounding titles of the world. They only show their vanity and weakness, and often bring ridicule upon ...
— The Christian Home • Samuel Philips
... bestow upon her youthful beauty such ornaments as yours. But say, I pray you, where can the cunning hand be found which fashions such glorious birds? Was it in Venice or Vienna that you bought this materpiece of art?" Unsuspicious of evil, and bridling at gratified vanity at this attention from a stranger of such distinguished mien, the spoil-bedecked fair one replied to him as ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 341, March, 1844, Vol. 55 • Various
... say then and testify in the Lord, that you no longer walk as the other gentiles walk, in the vanity of their minds, [4:18]with their understandings darkened, alienated from the life of God on account of the ignorance which is in them, on account of the hardness of their hearts, [4:19] who being without feeling have given themselves up to lewdness, ...
— The New Testament • Various
... of love with the idea of marriage! The Hon. Morison was perfectly sure that he had not mentioned marriage—he had been particularly careful not to do so. And then she was not sure that she loved him! That, too, came rather in the nature of a shock to his vanity. It seemed incredible that this little barbarian should have any doubts whatever as to the desirability of the Hon. ...
— The Son of Tarzan • Edgar Rice Burroughs
... religion here and there in them; 'tis but the bait on the hook! But you silly 'Cadians think your children are getting education, and that makes up for every thing else. Do you know what comes of it? Discontent. Vanity. Contempt of honest labor. Your children are going to be discontented with their lot. It will soon be good-by to sunbonnets; good-by to homespun; good-by to Grande Pointe,—yes, and good-by to the faith of your fathers. Catou, what do you know about that man, anyhow? You ask him no questions, you ...
— Bonaventure - A Prose Pastoral of Acadian Louisiana • George Washington Cable
... came without fear or question. When she entered she seemed to see no one, which wounded the vanity of the dreadful muse. Dona Consolacion coughed, motioned the soldiers to withdraw, and, taking down her husband's riding whip, said in ...
— An Eagle Flight - A Filipino Novel Adapted from Noli Me Tangere • Jose Rizal
... The instinct that served her for a conscience had long since told her as much. But her vanity, and perhaps something deeper, craved satisfaction. She wanted to believe he meant it. Under his ardent gaze the long lashes of the girl drooped to her dusky cheeks. It was Tony she loved, but Tony offered her ...
— Oh, You Tex! • William Macleod Raine
... anybody imagine that I think this play without its faults, for I am conscious of several. I confess I designed (whatever vanity or ambition occasioned that design) to have written a true and regular comedy, but I found it an undertaking which put me in mind of Sudet multum, frustraque laboret ausus idem. And now, to make amends for the vanity of such ...
— The Comedies of William Congreve - Volume 1 [of 2] • William Congreve
... and Joe Bardi's vanity was sorely touched. It was not pleasant to be badgered in this unseemly manner while engaged in beating one's own preserves. ...
— The Gates of Chance • Van Tassel Sutphen
... countenance, and learned the manner in which the machine would be worked, and its usefulness in smoothing linen, she felt the value of a useful life, and a sense of her own importance, distinct from the idle consequence which is the result of vanity and pride, but perfectly compatible with the self-distrust and true humility which was now happily taking a deep root in ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... come to these solitudes. Here selfishness dies away, and purity and magnanimity expand, the essence and germ of life. Sitting here in these cool recesses, screened from the sun, moist and musical with the waters, crusts of worldliness and vanity cleave off from the soul. The din dies away, and, with ears attuned to the harmonies of nature, we are soothed to summer quiet. The passion and truth of life flame up into serene but steadfast glow. Every attainment becomes possible. Inflated ...
— Gala-days • Gail Hamilton
... been one of toil and mayhap of misery, but she would have been content, for she had never dreamed of another life. But now she has heard thee speak of marble halls, of music and of flowers, of a life of ease and of vanity, and never again would that child be happy in her mother's arms. Be content, O Augusta! the girl is thine since thy caprice hath willed it so. Even though she chose her mother now, I would not have her, for I know that she would be unhappy in that lonely hut on ...
— "Unto Caesar" • Baroness Emmuska Orczy
... curse was not absolute but qualified. The expression is this: "Cursed is the ground for thy sake"; and in the eighth chapter of the Romans, verse twenty, we read: "The creature was made subject to vanity, not willingly." The fact is, that the earth, inasmuch as it bore guilty man, became involved in the curse as his instrument, just as also the sword, gold, and other objects, are cursed for the reason that men make them the instruments of their sin. ...
— Commentary on Genesis, Vol. II - Luther on Sin and the Flood • Martin Luther
... constructed, hung from the top, and found it in good preservation: some scrupulous man had made the ship, it seems, and thought, perhaps justly too, that he had spent a greater portion of time and care on the workmanship than he ought to have done; so resolving no longer to indulge his vanity or fondness, fairly hung it up in the convent chapel, and made a solemn vow to look on it no more. I remember a much stronger instance of self-denial practised by a pretty young lady of Paris once, who was enjoined by her confessor to ...
— Observations and Reflections Made in the Course of a Journey through France, Italy, and Germany, Vol. I • Hester Lynch Piozzi
... fruitless to deny my exultation when I saw my little ones about me; but the vanity and the satisfaction of my wife were even greater than mine. When our visitors would say, 'Well, upon my word, Mrs Primrose, you have the finest children in the whole country.'—'Ay, neighbour,' she would answer, 'they are as heaven made them, handsome enough, ...
— The Vicar of Wakefield • Oliver Goldsmith
... cheats nobody!" Babet looked down very complacently upon her new gown, which had been purchased at a great bargain at the magazine of the Bourgeois. She felt rather the more inclined to take this view of the question inasmuch as Jean had grumbled, just a little—he would not do more—at his wife's vanity in buying a gay dress of French fabric, like a city dame, while all the women of the parish were wearing homespun,—grogram, or linsey-woolsey,—whether ...
— The Golden Dog - Le Chien d'Or • William Kirby
... suspicion and foolish jealousy—this man has always gone about arrogating to himself the attributes of a god, calling upon his own people to worship him, and on all other peoples to be humble before him. Stung by his own restless vanity and the servile applause of those who are ever ready to prostrate themselves before an Emperor, he has rushed hither and thither seeking to make others the mere foils of his splendour and his wisdom, making mischief wherever he went and striving to irritate and depress his neighbours. This ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 152, March 7, 1917. • Various
... England as the Court of Versailles had, for its own ends, pretended. To the Nuncio the King said that the designs of Lewis were palpable and should be frustrated. This officious protection was at once an insult and a snare. "My good brother," said James, "has excellent qualities; but flattery and vanity have turned his head." [471] Adda, who was much more anxious about Cologne than about England, encouraged this strange delusion. Albeville, who had now returned to his post, was commanded to give friendly assurances to the States General, ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 2 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... on the Pont Neuf! The most important of men cannot stay; did the World's History depend on an hour, that hour is not to be given. Whereby, indeed, it comes that these same would-have-beens are mostly a vanity; and the World's History could never in the least be what it would, or might, or should, by any manner of potentiality, but simply and ...
— The French Revolution • Thomas Carlyle
... pompous professional air, and appeared to be waiting for the entire party to be ceremoniously introduced to him. Nothing unwilling to humor the vanity of the eccentric little man, Servadac proceeded to go through the ...
— Off on a Comet • Jules Verne
... is but partially successful. D'Artagnan finds Porthos, whose real name is Du Vallon, rich, flourishing, and a widower, but, notwithstanding all these advantages, perfectly unhappy because he has no title. Vanity was always the failing of Porthos. Aramis, otherwise the Chevalier—now the Abbe—d'Herblay, is up to the ears in intrigues of every description. Athos, Count de la Fere, has abandoned the wine-flask, formerly the deity of his adoration, and is busied ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 62, Number 361, November, 1845. • Various
... system but every other that, when earth and sun and stars have crumbled into dust, shall be built upon their ruins in the long long hereafter? It is not so, it cannot be. The claim is nothing but the outcome of exaggerated self-esteem, of inflated vanity; it is the claim of a moth, shrivelled in the flame of a candle, to outlive the sun, the claim of a worm to survive the destruction of this terrestrial globe in which it burrows. Those who take this view of ...
— The Belief in Immortality and the Worship of the Dead, Volume I (of 3) • Sir James George Frazer
... when he was set on to read Latin, which he did with the foreign pronunciation taught to him by his old master, the Jesuit, than which he knew no other. Mr. Bridge, the tutor, made him the object of clumsy jokes, in which he was fond of indulging. The young man's spirit was chafed, and his vanity mortified; and he found himself, for some time, as lonely in this place as ever he had been at Castlewood, whither he longed to return. His birth was a source of shame to him, and he fancied a hundred slights and sneers from young and old, who, no doubt, had ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... such a height hath built his mind, And reared the dwelling of his thoughts so strong, As neither fear nor hope can shake the frame Of his resolved powers; nor all the wind Of vanity and malice pierce to wrong His settled peace, or to disturb the same; What a fair seat hath he, from whence he may The boundless wastes and ...
— Adventures in Criticism • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... already indicated. Wrongly or rightly, it is felt (even by journalists who do not accept the traditions of The Daily Telegraph) that there is a poverty-stricken air about the use of the same adjective in consecutive sentences, and though we try to be honest in opinion, we have a workman's vanity in our efforts which asserts itself strongly and causes us, at some sacrifice of accuracy, to vary ...
— Our Stage and Its Critics • "E.F.S." of "The Westminster Gazette"
... of his imagination, whose servant is a style clear, direct, sane, illumined by a perfectly unaffected sincerity. It is the style of a man whose sympathy with mankind is too genuine to allow him the smallest gratification of his vanity at the cost of his fellow creatures, ... sufficiently pointed to carry deep his remorseless irony, and grave enough to be the dignified vehicle of his profound compassion. Its sustained harmony is never interrupted by those bursts of cymbals and fifes which some deaf ...
— Great Possessions • Mrs. Wilfrid Ward
... would have suggested itself to an imaginative beholder had such an one stood by to compare the picture with its almost twin living copy. Maryllia however had a very small stock of vanity,—she was only pleasantly aware that she possessed a certain grace and fascination not common to the ordinary of her sex, but beyond that, she rated her personal charms at very slight value. The portrait of Mary Elia Adelgisa made her more seriously discontented with herself than ever,—and ...
— God's Good Man • Marie Corelli
... Tim answered. "I don't know what she was in Kansas, but Luther has preached so much on worldliness and the vanity of fine clothes that it wouldn't look right for his niece to go flaunting frills and furbelows about the valley. That plain gray gown is a concession to the old man. He'd like her to wear a prayer-cap and a poke bonnet, I guess, ...
— The Soldier of the Valley • Nelson Lloyd
... has bestowed on me a fair enough share of genius for the making up of all those neat strokes of mother wit, for all those ingenious gallantries to which the ignorant and vulgar give the name of impostures; and I can boast, without vanity, that there have been very few men more skilful than I in expedients and intrigues, and who have acquired a greater reputation in the noble profession. But, to tell the truth, merit is too ill rewarded nowadays, and I have given up everything of the ...
— The Impostures of Scapin • Moliere
... by which his home was embellished, were such as few other homes could boast; and, if any thing made it less happy than it ought to be, the cause was to be found in the very brilliancy of his life and attractions, and in those triumphs out of the sphere of domestic love, to which his vanity, perhaps, oftener ...
— Memoirs of the Life of Rt. Hon. Richard Brinsley Sheridan Vol 2 • Thomas Moore
... suddenly presented itself, with such an aspect as threatened to overturn all the edifice of his logic. He hesitated for some moments; but, as we have already seen, M. Desalleux, in his functions of deputy-prosecutor, consulted his vanity at least as often as his conscience. Invoking all his powers of logic and skill for turning words to his purpose, struggling muscle to muscle with the unlucky testimony, he did not despair of finally enlisting it in the number of ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 456 - Volume 18, New Series, September 25, 1852 • Various
... statistical variety has lately focussed itself, bursting forth in a very tornado of long-winded, vilificacious ignorance. Certain subjects may be suitable vehicles for the exploiting of this species of personal vanity. But of them the most incongruous, and the most abused, has been the great, white, silent, unprotesting land. Nothing about it, from its origin to its beverages, but has had to bear the brunt of outrageous ...
— The Genius • Margaret Horton Potter
... sensible that this reverend rogue began to view me with more than an ordinary degree of interest and admiration; for I may say, without vanity, that as I approached my fifteenth year, I was a very pretty girl; my form had begun to develop and ripen, and my maiden graces were not likely to escape the lustful eyes of the elderly roues of our 'flock,' and seemed to be particularly ...
— City Crimes - or Life in New York and Boston • Greenhorn
... grew thicker than thieves in the course of time. The elder man soon became conscious of the fact that he was being studied, analyzed, even copied—the sincerest form of flattery—and it pleased his vanity. Buddy's mind was thirsty, his curiosity was boundless, questions popped out of him at every step, and every answer, every bit of information or of philosophy that fell from the visitor's lips he pounced upon, avidly examined, then carefully put away for future use. ...
— Flowing Gold • Rex Beach
... covered their heads with skull caps—as did Judge Sewall—and possibly wore, as he did also, a hood. Many a wig-hating minister must, in the Arctic meeting-house, have longed secretly for the grateful warmth to his head and neck of one of those "horrid Bushes of Vanity," a ...
— Sabbath in Puritan New England • Alice Morse Earle
... haunts of men, Like him renouncing vanity, His friendship I acquired just then; His character attracted me. An innate love of meditation, Original imagination, And cool sagacious mind he had: I was incensed and he was sad. Both were of passion satiate And ...
— Eugene Oneguine [Onegin] - A Romance of Russian Life in Verse • Aleksandr Sergeevich Pushkin
... their free ways and frank speech, accustomed as he was to the gay and easy manners of the studios and green-rooms he frequented. He went into the fashionable world for the glory of it, but his heart was not in it; he enjoyed it through his vanity, received congratulations and commissions, and played the gallant before charming ladies who flattered him, but never paid court to any. As he did not allow himself to indulge in daring pleasantries and spicy jests in their society, he thought them all prudes, ...
— Strong as Death • Guy de Maupassant
... out her hand which Sam took awkwardly. He had a feeling that she would not have regretted an opportunity to continue the sudden little intimacy that had sprung up between them in the few minutes' talk of Janet Eberly. The feeling did not come from vanity but from a belief in Sam that she was in some way lonely and wanting companionship. Although she had been much courted she lacked, he thought, the talent for comradeship or quick friendliness. "Like ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Ascension with a bounding step, and made the volcanic rocks ring under my geological hammer.' When in 1839 his charming Journal of Researches was published he records that 'The success of this my first literary child always tickles my vanity more than that of any ...
— The Coming of Evolution - The Story of a Great Revolution in Science • John W. (John Wesley) Judd
... of the North Boulevard stand two edifices, which owe their erection to the vanity of Lewis XIV. In the gratification of that passion did the Grand Monarque console himself for his numerous defeats and disappointments; and the age in which he lived being fertile in great men, owing, undoubtedly, to the encouragement he ...
— Paris As It Was and As It Is • Francis W. Blagdon
... watched the whole of this little scene between Leam and Alick while seeming to be occupied only in executing his spread eagles and outside curves to perfection, and it was no secret to him what it meant. The demon of masculine vanity, never far off where a pretty woman was concerned, entered and took possession of him. He would succeed where Alick Corfield had failed, and Leam, who refused her old friend, should gratify her new. He had been guiding Adelaide over ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. XVII, No. 99, March, 1876 • Various
... benedictions when the soul weary of its wanderings, sought for forgiveness and peace—if it ever did. And, after all, ere sleep visited her eyelids, she was plunged again in plans of petty ambition, vanity, and the pride of life,—so impotent is the human heart, unsupported by the grace ...
— May Brooke • Anna H. Dorsey
... people and things wholly falsified, and my soul wrapped in the vain solace of unsubstantial enjoyments during years of after sorrow, when but for this I might have early sought the consolations of the gospel. Parents know not what they do, when from vanity, thoughtlessness, or overindulgence, they foster in a young girl what is called a poetical taste. Those things highly esteemed among men are held in abomination with God; they thrust him from his creatures' thoughts, and enshrine a host of polluting ...
— Personal Recollections • Charlotte Elizabeth
... "Vanity has perhaps contributed to this impropriety of style. He that wishes to become a philosopher at a cheap rate easily gratifies his ambition by submitting to poverty when he does not feel it, and by boasting his contempt of riches when he has already more than he enjoys. He who would show the extent ...
— Dr. Johnson and His Circle • John Bailey
... develops or explains whatever complication comes up for settlement. But to range about unhampered by any theories, concerned only to examine all phenomena, and to report thereupon, careless of any considerations save those of artistic propriety, would have been vanity and striving after wind to Trollope, and derivatively so, ...
— Confessions and Criticisms • Julian Hawthorne
... it, so the work of the musician, of the artist, of any one in fact, reflects those thoughts which forever hover above the others. Thoughts of good, thoughts of evil, thoughts of generosity, thoughts of selfish vanity, these, and every other kind, are so strongly reflected in the work we do that they are often more plainly seen than the work itself. And with the works of a great artist before us we may find out not only what he did and what he knew, but what he felt and even what ...
— Music Talks with Children • Thomas Tapper
... the housewife, "when the bushel of rye costs but a groat! What! me spend a month's meal and meat and fire on such vanity as that: the lightning from Heaven would fall on me, and my ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade
... Little Red Doctor, who set out to attend a highly interesting consultation at 4 P.M. and, hearing Grandfather Ananias strike three, erroneously concluded that he had spare time to stop in for a peek at Madame Tallafferr's gout (which was really vanity in the guise of tight shoes), and reached the hospital, only to find it all over ...
— From a Bench in Our Square • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... into his place behind the steering wheel and observed her again. It was a setting that became her. Her shyness seemed to have all vanished. She was powdering her nose as he climbed in; a silver vanity case lay open on her lap. He noticed it, saw a hairpin and two nickles and a card or two. She had said ...
— Stubble • George Looms
... in Union Square, And timid breaths of vernal air Go wandering down the dusty town, Like children lost in Vanity Fair; ...
— The Poems of Henry Van Dyke • Henry Van Dyke
... pretend to take peculiar delight in many of the more decadent forms of Greek thought, but in reality her leaders instinctively turned to Stoicism, as affording a compromise between the mere thoughtless activity of youth, which acts for the love of acting, and the jaded philosophy of the vanity of all effort. About the middle of the century (circa B.C. 150) there existed in Rome a centre of culture and intellectual influence, a little group of men peculiarly interesting, because they form practically the first instance of an intellectual coterie in the history of Rome. ...
— The Religion of Numa - And Other Essays on the Religion of Ancient Rome • Jesse Benedict Carter
... potent charms that mortals can wield. They show that the parties are important to each other. They give life its highest value. In their absence, all romantic color fades, and every precious affection expires. The most effective intercourse that vanity can establish with strangers offers nothing comparable to the delicious quality of the experience which results when a parent and child, of suitable character and age, are blessed with a complete friendship. Every thought of it pours for them a sudden sunshine through the sky, an ...
— The Friendships of Women • William Rounseville Alger
... and amuse all cricketers, and while from the male point of view it may serve as a good illustration of the fickleness of woman and the impossibility of forecasting what course she will take, the fair sex will find in it an equally shining proof of the colossal vanity of man. ...
— A Wodehouse Miscellany - Articles & Stories • P. G. Wodehouse
... in a philosophical aspect, in spite of their repulsiveness are invested with dignity, and really indicate great moral and intellectual movements, as well as the personal ambition or vanity of conquerors. They are the ultimate solutions of great questions, not to be solved in any other way,—unfortunately, I grant,—on account of human wickedness. And I know of no great wars, much as I loathe and detest ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume V • John Lord
... I, nor in vain, Yet amain Must thou help me too, and humble Resist all: 14 Even all the world's debate Of riches and of vanity, Seek thou for grace, Since pomp and honour, high estate Vainly elate, Are but a stumbling-block to thee, No resting-place. 15 Power uncontrolled is thine, And an independent will Unbound by fate: Even so in His might divine Did God design That thou ...
— Four Plays of Gil Vicente • Gil Vicente
... beset the latter years of Raleigh's life. In consequence of this intrigue, he was committed to the Tower. One or two amusing anecdotes are related of the devices which he employed to obtain forgiveness, by working on that vanity which was the Queen's chief foible. He succeeded in appeasing his indignant mistress so far as to procure his release; and about the same time, in 1594, she granted to him the valuable manor of Sherborne, in Dorsetshire; but though she requited his services, she still forbade ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 1 of 8 • Various
... himself, at any rate, is the invariable result of his exertions. He travels a great deal, knows everybody everywhere, and always turns up again in the old haunts, bristling with interesting information, visibly enjoying his busy, full life, and not without a certain vanity, arising from the feeling that his fellow-citizens are ...
— Dutch Life in Town and Country • P. M. Hough
... she suspended operations on the doily, and sat for a while gazing reflectively into the fire. She was a person as frank with herself as with others, and with as little vanity as was compatible with being human, which is to say that, though she was not without it, it was of the sort which could be gratified but not flattered—in fact, the sort which flattery wounds rather ...
— David Harum - A Story of American Life • Edward Noyes Westcott
... Egypt, where only the King or his high priest might venture to come, at the fete of the New Year. They stood in its darkness, this woman who was longing to return to the unbridled life of her sensual and disordered past, and this man who, quite without vanity, believed that he had been permitted ...
— Bella Donna - A Novel • Robert Hichens
... attentions. I had no servant, so she waited on me night and morning, and her false eye was such an excellent match that I quite forgot its falsity. She was a clever, but a vain girl, and though at first I had no designs upon her I flattered her vanity by my conversation and the little presents I bestowed upon her, which enabled her to cut a figure in church on Sundays. So before long I had my eyes opened to two facts; the one that she was sure of my love, and wondered ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt
... horse. I am in a position of special moral superiority to men who are on the whole as good men as I am or better. That shows all the time. You see the sort of man I am. I've a broad streak of personal vanity. I fag easily. I'm short-tempered. I've other things, as you perceive. When I fag I become obtuse, I repeat and bore, I get viciously ill-tempered, I suffer from an intolerable sense of ill usage. Then that ass, Wagstaffe, who ...
— The Secret Places of the Heart • H. G. Wells
... point the vanity of women, of their lovers, and even that of their husbands, is so sensitive that we had better here settle upon some general rules, which are ...
— The Physiology of Marriage, Part I. • Honore de Balzac
... Bess teasingly. "Sir Launcelot having done a knightly deed and rescued a fair damsel, and the fair damsel's family, from a dragon, will give his vanity an outing." ...
— The President - A novel • Alfred Henry Lewis
... will find me, my Lord, again falling into my usual vanity, in valuing myself on the eminent men whose society I once enjoyed. I remember, in a conversation I once had with my ever dear friend Garrick, who was the first of actors, because he was the most acute observer of Nature I ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... receive an education disproportioned to their birth. This has often no other consequences than to make them unfit for their stations, by placing them, in their own opinion, above the drudgery of daily labour; a notion which is too much indulged, as idleness, cooperating with vanity, can hardly fail to gain the ascendant, and which sometimes prompts them to support themselves by practices not only useless, but pernicious to society. This evil, sir, cannot be better obviated than by allotting ...
— The Works of Samuel Johnson, Vol. 10. - Parlimentary Debates I. • Samuel Johnson
... 'e's fair orf 'is top wiv love, When she 'as got 'im good an' 'ad 'er fun, She slings 'im over like a carst-orf glove, To let the other tarts see wot she's done. All vanity, deceit an' 'eartless kid! I orter known; an', spare me ...
— The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke • C. J. Dennis
... ought to do, advised him how to dress, eat, walk, talk, and never passed over any fault of manners, taste, or language; and he could not be hurt by it, so light and careful was her touch in the handling of the boy's easily injured vanity. She took in hand also his literary education without seeming to be concerned with it; she never showed surprise at his strange ignorance, but never let slip an opportunity of correcting his mistakes simply, ...
— Jean-Christophe, Vol. I • Romain Rolland
... the other as by that which was directed at themselves. It is self-love that makes people easily offended and easily wounded; and the more self-love they have, the easier they are hurt and the quicker their resentment is aroused. Self-love begets vanity; it quivers in keenest anguish at a sneer or a scornful smile; it is distressed by even a fancied slight. Self-love throws the nerves of sensation all out to the surface and makes them hyper-sensitive, and so the person feels everything ...
— Heart Talks • Charles Wesley Naylor
... at all; the other half had exceptionally smooth and beautiful skins, of which they were obviously proud, and whose pink-and-white peach-blossom they thought to preserve by assiduous bathing. It was vanity working on two opposite bases. There was a sprinkling of men, however, who were really there for a sufficient reason—wounds or serious complaints; while a few good old sticks, porty and whisty, were in attendance on ...
— Miss Cayley's Adventures • Grant Allen
... exceptions, there is little worth doing into English or any other tongue. And after all, Gil Blas is only a renegade Spaniard in a French uniform; and, undoubtedly, it is not genius, but merely their intense vanity and egotism, that enables them to excel in writing their own memoirs. Besides, unlike most other people, their books ...
— The Actress in High Life - An Episode in Winter Quarters • Sue Petigru Bowen
... Well, I daresay it is, lad, in your eyes; but let me tell you, it is a place of deep interest, and, I may add without vanity, importance. There are inventions here, all in a state bordering more or less upon completion, which will, when brought into operation, modify the state of society very materially in many of its most prominent phases. Here, for instance, is a self-acting ...
— Fighting the Flames • R.M. Ballantyne
... rush of words. "You came to accuse me, to bribe me, to buy me. You didn't want to hear me; I was already condemned. Do you think I don't know what's said about my marriages? I know too well. But it isn't vanity that makes me want to be loved. It's so right to be loved. It isn't wickedness. It's the terror of not being loved—the same terror that makes you cling to Terry though she doesn't want you in return—— We ...
— The Kingdom Round the Corner - A Novel • Coningsby Dawson
... B. Memoirs, Gardendale, California, 1939. The book never was published; it was merely printed to satisfy the senescent vanity of a property-worshiping, cliche-parroting reactionary who made money ranching before he became governor of Wyoming. He tells a few good anecdotes of range days. Numerous better books pertaining to the range are NOT listed here; this ...
— Guide to Life and Literature of the Southwest • J. Frank Dobie
... custom, Immoral ditties are their delight; Vain and tasteless praise they recite; Falsehood at all times do they utter; The innocent persons they ridicule; Married women they destroy, Innocent virgins of Mary they corrupt; As they pass their lives away in vanity; Poor innocent persons they ridicule; At night they get drunk, they sleep the day; In idleness without work they feed themselves; The Church they hate, and the tavern they frequent; With thieves and perjured fellows they associate; At courts they inquire after feasts; Every senseless word ...
— The Mabinogion Vol. 3 (of 3) • Owen M. Edwards
... wicked vanity of Sir William Davenant himself, who, disdaining his honest but mean descent from the vintner, had the shameless impiety to deny his father and reproach the memory of his mother by claiming ...
— Melomaniacs • James Huneker
... harsh, censorious and bitterly controversial, making many enemies and leading a wretched home-life. C. has a grand oratorical energy and dignity, but lacking in the organs of reverence and humility, he overrates himself and becomes famous for his vanity. D. has the intellect, wit, humor, and social qualities to shine in company, but from lack of the organ of self-respect, he fails to maintain the dignity of a gentleman and command proper respect in society. E. had the power and genius to rank among the most eloquent and distinguished men of ...
— Buchanan's Journal of Man, August 1887 - Volume 1, Number 7 • Various
... another kind. Prizes, as I have said, are for the few; and it is the consciousness of being one of the elect which invests the winning of a prize with its chief attraction. The prize system makes a direct appeal to the vanity and egoism of the child. It encourages him to think himself better than others, to pride himself on having surpassed his class-mates and shone at their expense. The clever child is to work hard, not because ...
— What Is and What Might Be - A Study of Education in General and Elementary Education in Particular • Edmond Holmes
... of that spirited disaster, the intervention of England on behalf of the new Hohenzollern throne, was due, of course, to the national policy of the first William Pitt. He was the kind of man whose vanity and simplicity are too easily overwhelmed by the obvious. He saw nothing in a European crisis except a war with France; and nothing in a war with France except a repetition of the rather fruitless glories of Agincourt and Malplaquet. He was of the Erastian Whigs, sceptical but still ...
— The Crimes of England • G.K. Chesterton
... moving impatiently; "it is almost sacrilege to talk that way. Who am I that he should aspire to me? What have I done? What can I do? Nothing. I haven't a single talent, hardly an accomplishment. Oh, I know that I was intoxicated with vanity, but that has worn off. I am simply a country girl, ...
— Old Ebenezer • Opie Read
... of high degree, So much in love with the vanity And foolish pomp of this world of ours? Or was it Christian charity, And lowliness and humility, The richest and rarest ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow • Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
... believe it such at present. His affection was all her own. She could not be deceived in that. Her mother, sisters, Fanny, all had been conscious of his regard for her at Norland; it was not an illusion of her own vanity. He certainly loved her. What a softener of the heart was this persuasion! How much could it not tempt her to forgive! He had been blamable, highly blamable, in remaining at Norland after he first felt her influence over him to be more than it ought to be. ...
— Persuasion • Jane Austen
... latest fashions in their favourite feminine periodical. Mrs Turner was very likely to have occasion for such figures, for she was, with her other pursuits, a sort of dressmaker, or modiste; in fact, she seems to have been a ready minister to every kind of human vanity and folly, as well as to a good deal of human wickedness. In the department of dress, she had a name in her own sex and age as illustrious as that of Brummel among dandies in the beginning of this century. As he was the inventor of the starched cravat, she was his precursor in the invention ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 442 - Volume 17, New Series, June 19, 1852 • Various
... glowing dispatches about his victory to the City of Mexico and announced that he would soon come. His subordinates would destroy the wandering bands of Texans. Then he did another thing that appealed to his vanity. He wrote a proclamation to the Texans announcing the fall of the Alamo, and directing them to submit at once, on pain of death, to his authority. He called for Mrs. Dickinson, the young wife, now widow, whom the gallantry of Almonte had saved from massacre in the Alamo. He directed ...
— The Texan Scouts - A Story of the Alamo and Goliad • Joseph A. Altsheler
... pummeled his head for an idea while she took from her hand-bag, not a vanity-case, but a stenographer's notebook and a sheaf ...
— The Cup of Fury - A Novel of Cities and Shipyards • Rupert Hughes |
