#vanity

I'm not good, of course; I wouldn't give a fig to be good. So it's not vanity. It's on a far grander scale; a splendid selfishness, - authorized, too; and papa and mamma brought me up to worship beauty, -and there's the fifth commandment, you know. ↗

— Harriet Prescott Spofford

#beauty

I am less to you than your ivory Hermes or your silver Faun. You will like them always. How long will you like me? Till I have my first wrinkle, I suppose. I know, now, that when one loses one's good looks, whatever they may be, one loses everything. Your picture has taught me that. Lord Henry Wotton is perfectly right. Youth is the only thing worth having. When I find that I am growing old, I shall kill myself. ↗

— Oscar Wilde

#death #vanity #beauty

Don't be vain. What you look like doesn't matter. It's the deed that matters. ↗

— Sarah Addison Allen

#change #deeds #vanity #change

SONG OF DAWN I saw the sun rise by accident. It was a horrible sight. Annoyed by its splendor, I sought refuge in a moist pillow, and lay there, alone, at the dawn of another day, that brought me closer to another death, pondering the vanity of my solitude, the vanity of procrastination, and the tiresome inevitability of waking up again the same person. It might still be possible to change, but obstinately I remain the same, hoping that others might take solace in my consistency. But perhaps they take no solace in it, perhaps they too find it tedious. ↗

— John Tottenham

#regret #vanity #change

The physical vanity of the diet-and-exercise obsessive is recast as the pursuit of a kind of ritual purity, hedged about with taboos and guilt trips and mysticized by yoga. (Not for nothing does Amazon.com include diet and exercise books on its "Religion and Spirituality" bestseller list. ....) ↗

— Ross Douthat

#exercise #puritanical #purity #vanity #yoga

Had I been in love, I could not have been more wretchedly blind. But vanity, not love, has been my folly. ↗

— Jane Austen

#blindness #denial #folly #love #refusal

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

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

I'm amazing and studly, but I have limits. ↗

— Jim Butcher

#thomas-raith #vanity #humor

But the vain man did not hear him. Vain men never hear anything but praise. ↗

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

#vanity #men