Vain Quotes

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.

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

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.

On the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.

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.

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

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.

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 a vain hope to make people happy by politics.

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.

It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.

Concerning God, freewill and destiny: Of all that earth has been or yet may be, all that vain men imagine or believe, or hope can paint or suffering may achieve, we descanted.

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.

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.

I find that men are far more vain than women.

This preparatory sort of idealism is the one that, as I just suggested, Berkeley made prominent, and, after a fashion familiar. I must state it in my own way, although one in vain seeks to attain novelty in illustrating so frequently described a view.

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

I wouldn't write anything autobiographical. If you've lived a life like Laurence of Arabia, it might be a consideration, but otherwise it's a little bit vain, it seems to me.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer.

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.

The promises of this world are, for the most part, vain phantoms; and to confide in one's self, and become something of worth and value is the best and safest course.