Quotes by Vanity From that awful encounter of the soul with the outer world, enunciation, wisdom, and charity are born; and with their birth a new life begins. To take into the inmost shrine of the soul the irresistible forces whose puppets we seem to be - Death and change, the irrevocableness of the past, and the powerlessness of Man before the blind hurry of the universe from vanity to vanity - to feel these things and know them is to conquer them. Bertrand Russell vanity men past No human pursuit achieves dignity unless it can be called work, and when you can experience a physical loneliness for the tools of your trade, you see that the other things - the experiments, the irrelevant vocations, the vanities you used to hold - were false to you. Beryl Markham vanity loneliness tools I guess I'm larger than life. That's my problem. Bette Davis larger-than-life vanity problem Aristocracy has three successive ages. First superiority s, then privileges and finally vanities. Having passed from the first, it degenerates in the second and dies in the third. Bill Vaughan aristocracy vanity age Curiosity is only vanity. We usually only want to know something so that we can talk about it. Blaise Pascal vanity curiosity pride Anyone who does not see the vanity of the world is very vain himself. So who does not see it, apart from young people whose lives are all noise, diversions, and thoughts for the future? But take away their diversion and you will see them bored to extinction. Then they feel their nullity without recognizing it, for nothing could be more wretched than to be intolerably depressed as soon as one is reduced to introspection with no means of diversion. Blaise Pascal vanity mean people Curiosity is nothing more than vanity. More often than not we only seek knowledge to show it off. Blaise Pascal vanity curiosity shows [On vanity:] The nose of Cleopatra: if it had been shorter, the face of the earth would have changed. Blaise Pascal vanity noses beauty Vanity is but the surface. Blaise Pascal surface vanity What a strange vanity painting is; it attracts admiration by resembling the original, we do not admire. Blaise Pascal vanity strange pain The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy. Blaise Pascal vanity causes ignorance Vanity is illustrated in the cause and effect of love, as in the case of Cleopatra. Blaise Pascal vanity cases causes There is no arena in which vanity displays itself under such a variety of forms as in conversation. Blaise Pascal arena vanity form We do not content ourselves with the life we have in ourselves and in our being; we desire to live an imaginary life in the mind of others, and for this purpose we endeavor to shine. We labor unceasingly to adorn and preserve this imaginary existence and neglect the real. Blaise Pascal vanity hypocrisy real That something so obvious as the vanity of the world should be so little recognized that people find it odd and surprising to be told that it is foolish to seek greatness; that is most remarkable. Blaise Pascal vanity greatness people We are so presumptuous that we should like to be known all over the world, even by people who will only come when we are no more. Such is our vanity that the good opinion of half a dozen of the people around us gives us pleasure and satisfaction. Blaise Pascal vanity math people How vain is painting, which is admired for reproducing the likeness of things whose originals are not admired. Blaise Pascal vanity painting vain Curiosity is only vanity. Most frequently we wish not to know, but to talk. We would not take a sea voyage for the sole pleasure of seeing without hope of ever telling. Blaise Pascal vanity curiosity sea We need not have the loftiest mind to understand that here is no lasting and real satisfaction, that our pleasures are only vanity, that our evils are infinite, and, lastly, that death, which threatens us every moment, must infallibly place us within a few years under the dreadful necessity of being forever either annihilated or unhappy. Blaise Pascal vanity real death We are so presumptuous that we wish to be known to all the world, even to those who come after us; and we are so vain that the esteem of five or six persons immediately around us is enough to amuse and satisfy us. Blaise Pascal vanity wish world «1234567891011»