#vanity

Foolish men always believe that a little knowledge will give them control over the world, but it is no more than a display of their vanity. ↗

— J. P. Vinluca

#fools #knowledge #men #power #vanity

Man is the vainest of all creatures that have their being upon earth. As long as heaven vouchsafes him health and strength, he thinks that he shall come to no harm hereafter, and even when the blessed gods bring sorrow upon him, he bears it as he needs must, and makes the best of it; for God Almighty gives men their daily minds day by day. I know all about it, for I was a rich man once, and did much wrong in the stubbornness of my pride, and in the confidence that my father and my brothers would support me; therefore let a man fear God in all things always, and take the good that heaven may see fit to send him without vainglory. ↗

— Homer

#vanity #men

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it; for, however absurd it may be thought to boast an honour by an act which shows that it was conferred without merit, yet most men seem rather inclined to confess the want of virtue than of importance. ↗

— Samuel Johnson

#self-importance #trustworthiness #vanity #men

You will be most readily cured of vanity or presumption by studying the history of music, and by hearing the master pieces which have been produced at different periods. ↗

— Robert Schumann

#history #music #vanity #music

One altar forever is preserved, that whereon we burn incense to the supreme idol,--ourselves, our god is great, and money is his Prophet! We devastate nature in order to make sacrifice to him; we boast that we have conquered Matter and forget that it is matter that has forever enslaved us. ↗

— Okakura Kakuzo

#egotism #vanity #money

You have a great deal of yourself on the line, writing— your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing; a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to do it all, but any vanity above that certain amount is lethal. ↗

— David Foster Wallace

#fun #the-nature-of-the-fun #vanity #writing #nature

Without the errors which are active in every psychical pleasure and displeasrue a humanity would never have come into existence--whose fundamental feeling is and remains that man is the free being in a world of unfreedom, the external miracle worker whether he does good or ill, the astonishing exception, the superbeast and almost-god, the meaning of creation which cannot be thought away, the solution of the cosmic riddle, the mighty ruler over nature and the despiser of it, the creature which calls its history world history!--Vanitas vanitatum homo. ↗

— Friedrich Nietzsche

#vanity #nature

How much vanity must be concealed – not too effectively at that – in order to pretend that one is the personal object of a divine plan? ↗

— Christopher Hitchens

#vanity #religion

Lockhart'll sign anything if it stands still long enough. ↗

— J.K. Rowling

#vanity #secret

We think we are being interesting to others when we are being interesting to ourselves. ↗

— Jack Gardner

#interest #self-absorbtion #vanity #ego