#vanity

How come it can’t fly no better than a chicken?’ Milkman asked. Too much tail. All that jewelry weighs it down. Like vanity. Can’t nobody fly with all that [stuff]. Wanna fly, you got to give up the [stuff] that weighs you down.’ The peacock jumped onto the hood of the Buick and once more spread its tail, sending the flashy Buick into oblivion. ↗

— Toni Morrison

#peacock #vanity

You painted a naked woman because you enjoyed looking at her, put a mirror in her hand and you called the painting “Vanity,” thus morally condemning the woman whose nakedness you had depicted for you own pleasure. ↗

— John Berger

#misogyny #projection #sexism #vanity

In some situations, if you say nothing, you are called dull; if you talk, you are thought impertinent and arrogant. It is hard to know what to do in this case. The question seems to be, whether your vanity or your prudence predominates. ↗

— William Hazlitt

#prudence #talking #vanity #vanity

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress. ↗

— Jane Austen

#women-writers #vanity

But I begin to fancy you don't like me. How strange! I thought, though everybody hated and despised each other, they could not avoid loving me. (Catherine Linton, nee Earnshaw) ↗

— Emily Brontë

#vanity #love

Which of us is happy in this world? Which of us has his desire? or, having it, is satisfied? ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#humor #satire #vanity #humor

Amongst democratic nations men easily attain a certain equality of conditions: they can never attain the equality they desire. It perpetually retires from before them, yet without hiding itself from their sight, and in retiring draws them on. At every moment they think they are about to grasp it; it escapes at every moment from their hold. They are near enough to see its charms, but too far off to enjoy them; and before they have fully tasted its delights they die. ↗

— Alexis de Tocqueville

#equality #life #vanity #death

But a man's beauty represents inner, functional truths: his face shows what he can do. And what is that compared to the magnificent uselessness of a woman's face? Mersault was aware of this now, delighting in his vanity and smiling at his secret demons. ↗

— Albert Camus

#men #vanity #women #beauty

You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be. ↗

— Günter Grass

#vanity #wickedness #vanity

What a situation!' cried Miss Squeers; '...What is the reason that men fall in love with me, whether I like it or not, and desert their chosen intendeds for my sake?' 'Because they can't help it, miss,' replied the girl; 'the reason's plain.' (If Miss Squeers were the reason, it was very plain.) ↗

— Charles Dickens

#humor #plain #vanity #love