#vanity

We must remember that possession of physical beauty can easily weaken the moral faculty. ↗

— Frank Tallis

#morality #vanity #weakness #beauty

But the more shrewdly and earnestly we study the histories of men, the less ready shall we be to make use of the word ‘artificial.’ Nothing in the world has ever been artificial. Many customs, many dresses, many works of art are branded with artificiality because the exhibit vanity and self-consciousness: as if vanity were not a deep and elemental thing, like love and hate and the fear of death. Vanity may be found in darkling deserts, in the hermit and in the wild beasts that crawl around him. It may be good or evil, but assuredly it is not artificial: vanity is a voice out of the abyss. ↗

— G.K. Chesterton

#vanity #art

That which attracts the world must please and pander to the self-importance of man. The world itself is a vain show, and likes its own. Consequently there is nothing which so carries the mass of men along with it as that which flatters the vanity of the human mind. It may assume the lowliest air, but sinful man seeks his own honour and present exaltation. ↗

— William Kelly

#vanity #world #men

When dealing with people, remember you are not dealing with creatures of logic, but with creatures bristling with prejudice and motivated by pride and vanity. ↗

— Dale Carnegie

#people #prejudice #pride #relationships #vanity

[L]ife is a phenomenon in need of criticism, for we are, as fallen creatures, in permanent danger of worshipping false gods, of failing to understand ourselves and misinterpreting the behaviour of others, of growing unproductively anxious or desirous, and of losing ourselves to vanity and error. Surreptitiously and beguilingly, then, with humour or gravity, works of art--novels, poems, plays, paintings or films--can function as vehicles to explain our condition to us. They may act as guides to a truer, more judicious, more intelligent understanding of the world. ↗

— Alain de Botton

#art #criticism #desire #films #gravity

Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us. ↗

— Jane Austen

#pride #vanity #think

What people regard as vanity—leaving great works, having children, acting in such a way as to prevent one's name from being forgotten—I regard as the highest expression of human dignity. ↗

— Paulo Coelho

#vanity #dignity

There comes a time when you look into the mirror and you realize that what you see is all that you will ever be. And then you accept it. Or you kill yourself. Or you stop looking in mirrors. ↗

— Tennessee Williams

#suicide #vanity #kill

A man's vanity is more fragile that you might think. It's easy for us to mistake shyness for coldness, and silence for indifference. ↗

— Lisa Kleypas

#indifference #shyness #vanity #devil

Never lose a chance of saying a kind word. ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#vanity