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.

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.

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.

When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain.

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

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.

And weep the more, because I weep in vain.

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.

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.

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.

Some think the worst horrors of war might be avoided by an international agreement not to use atomic bombs. This is a vain hope.

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.

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.

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.

In the vain laughter of folly wisdom hears half its applause.

Unless man is committed to the belief that all mankind are his brothers, then he labors in vain and hypocritically in the vineyards of equality.

We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for.