Vain Quotes

It is vain to expect a well-balanced government without a well-balanced society.

Death is not more certainly a separation of our souls from our bodies than the Christian life is a separation of our souls from worldly tempers, vain indulgences, and unnecessary cares.

It is a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

If I were to die thinking that I'd written three poems that people might read after me, I would feel that I hadn't lived in vain. Great poets might expect the whole body of their work, but most of us - well, I would settle for a handful.

Men don't and can't live by exchanging articles, but by producing them. They don't live by trade, but by work. Give up that foolish and vain title of Trades Unions; and take that of laborers Unions.

World's use is cold, world's love is vain, world's cruelty is bitter bane; but is not the fruit of pain.

Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God.

It is vain to talk of the interest of the community, without understanding what is the interest of the individual.

Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul.

It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it.

Affliction is not sent in vain, young man, from that good God, who chastens whom he loves.

Roll on, deep and dark blue ocean, roll. Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain. Man marks the earth with ruin, but his control stops with the shore.

A religious awakening which does not awaken the sleeper to love has roused him in vain.

If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources.

If a war be undertaken... before the resources of peace have been tried and proved vain to secure it, that war has no defense, it is a national crime.

A vain man finds it wise to speak good or ill of himself; a modest man does not talk of himself.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

The martyr sacrifices themselves entirely in vain. Or rather not in vain; for they make the selfish more selfish, the lazy more lazy, the narrow narrower.

And though all streams flow from a single course to cleanse the blood from polluted hand, they hasten on their course in vain.

Poetry, it is often said and loudly so, is life's true mirror. But a monkey looking into a work of literature looks in vain for Socrates.

You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes.

Vanity is something that will only get in the way of doing your best work, and ultimately if you're truly vain you care more about your work than how you look in your work. I actually consider myself a pretty vain guy when it comes to that.

About the use of language: it is impossible to sharpen a pencil with a blunt axe. It is equally vain to try to do it with ten blunt axes instead.

It is in vain that we would circumscribe the power of one half of our race, and that half by far the most important and influential.

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.

I'm vain enough to want do a movie again.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

Women have seldom sufficient employment to silence their feelings; a round of little cares, or vain pursuits frittering away all strength of mind and organs, they become naturally only objects of sense.

And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

Mathematicians have tried in vain to this day to discover some order in the sequence of prime numbers, and we have reason to believe that it is a mystery into which the human mind will never penetrate.