#vainly

There is perhaps no more obvious vanity than to write of it so vainly. ↗

— Michel de Montaigne

#obvious #perhaps #than #vainly #vanity

The mastery of nature is vainly believed to be an adequate substitute for self mastery. ↗

— Reinhold Niebuhr

#believed #mastery #nature #self #substitute

Unless a tree has borne blossoms in spring, you will vainly look for fruit on it in autumn. ↗

— Walter Scott

#autumn #blossoms #borne #fruit #look

By mere burial man arrives not at bliss; and in the future life, throughout its whole infinite range, they will seek for happiness as vainly as they sought it here, who seek it in aught else than that which so closely surrounds them here - the Infinite. ↗

— Johann Gottlieb Fichte

#aught #bliss #burial #closely #else

In ambition, as in love, the successful can afford to be indulgent toward their rivals. The prize our own, it is graceful to recognize the merit that vainly aspired to it. ↗

— Christian Nestell Bovee

#ambition #aspired #graceful #indulgent #love