#vanity

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

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

Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain. ↗

— Jean-Jacques Rousseau

#emile #life #simplicity #vanity #life

Vanity is as old as the mammoth. ↗

— W. L. George

#old #vanity

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

Love is responsible for nearly every kind of insanity in the world though greed, vanity, and pure meanness contribute their portion to general misery. ↗

— P.N. Elrod

#insanity #life #love #meanness #misery

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