#vain

The entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain. And they're dying in vain right this very second. And you know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain? It's more soldiers dying in vain. That's what's worse. ↗

— Mike Gravel

#died #dying #entire #know #more

An honest man speaks the truth, though it may give offence; a vain man, in order that it may. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#honest #honest man #man #may #offence

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it make us vain, in fact, of our modesty. ↗

— Louis Kronenberger

#fact #greater #in fact #make #modesty

No sooner have you feasted on beauty with your eyes than your mind tells you that beauty is vain and beauty passes ↗

— Virginia Woolf

#christiana-rossetti #inspiration #literature #vain #victorian-literature

You may have misery,” she continued, ignoring my plea, “you may lose hope in the sorrow of an unplanned life but as long as you have faith and trust in adoration, in affection, in love, that sorrow will turn to happiness. And that is a constant, dear.” She breathed deeply and steadily for a moment, seemingly catching her breath. “No one can know sincere happiness, Sophie, without first having known sorrow. One can never appreciate the enormity and rareness of such a fiery bliss without seeing misery, however unfair that may be. “And you will know honest happiness. Of that I am certain. Certain because it’s why you are here and also because here is your inevitability. ↗

— Fisher Amelie

#love #sorrow #vain #faith

I want to spend less time talking about myself, and more time listening to what other people have to say about me. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#funny #humor #listening #myself #selfish

As soon as the words presented themselves, Gabriel knew that they were perfect for him. Perfect for what he was contemplating doing to her. Perfect for his own self-justification. Tasting. Taking. Sucking. Sinning. Draining. Abandoning. She was pure. She was innocent. He wanted her. Facilis descensus Averni. But he would not be the one to make her bleed. He could not, would not, make another girl bleed for the rest of his life. All thoughts of seduction and mad, passionate f*cking on desks and chairs, against walls and bookshelves and windows, immediately gave way. He would not take her. He would not mark her and claim what he had no right to claim. ↗

— Sylvain Reynard

#sylvain-reynard #life

I can’t do that,” he said, exhaling sharply and staring out the glass into the street. “Why not?” His face softened. “I need his money.” Spencer looked at me and I couldn’t help but stare back. We were all in the same boat, prisoners to GREED. ↗

— Fisher Amelie

#sophie #spencer #vain #money

Vainglory, however, no matter how much medieval Christianity insisted it was a sin, is a motor of mankind, no more eradicable than sex. ↗

— Barbara W. Tuchman

#mankind #motivation #sex #sin #vainglory

I have often wished in vain,' said she, 'for another's judgment to appeal to when I could scarcely trust the direction of my own eye and head, they having been so long occupied with the contemplation of a single object as to become almost incapable of forming a proper idea respecting it.' 'That,' replied I, 'is only one of many evils to which a solitary life exposes us. ↗

— Anne Brontë

#judgment #solitude #vain-hopes #respect