#vanity

The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality. ↗

— Patricia Meyer Spacks

#claim #constant #feminine #ground #implicit

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead. ↗

— George Savile

#doth #forget #man #oft #teaching

But I feel vanity is a part of art and the non-vain are really non-artistic. ↗

— Barry Webster

#vanity #art

Then the cow asked: "What is a mirror?" "It is a hole in the wall," said the cat. "You look in it, and there you see the picture, and it is so dainty and charming and ethereal and inspiring in its unimaginable beauty that your head turns round and round, and you almost swoon with ecstasy. ↗

— Mark Twain

#self-image #vanity #beauty

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

It was in the reign of George II. that the above-named personages lived and quarrelled ; good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor, they are all equal now ↗

— William Makepeace Thackeray

#life #vanity #death

I was good at being charming, one of my very few vanities. ↗

— Jeff Lindsay

#vanity #dreams

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

[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