Without this ridiculous vanity...

Without this ridiculous vanity that takes the form of self-display, and is part of everything and everyone, we would see nothing, and nothing would exist.

~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin~

What makes the vanity of other...

What makes the vanity of others insupportable is that it wounds our own.

~François de la Rochefoucauld~

What is the vanity of the vain...

What is the vanity of the vainest man compared with the vanity which the most modest possesses when, in the midst of nature and the world, he feels himself to be ''man''!

~Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche~

We speak little if not egged o...

We speak little if not egged on by vanity.

~François de la Rochefoucauld~

Virtue would not go to such le...

Virtue would not go to such lengths if vanity did not keep her company.

~François de la Rochefoucauld~

Vanity, I am sensible, is my c...

Vanity, I am sensible, is my cardinal vice and cardinal folly; and I am in continual danger, when in company, of being led an ignis fatuus chase by it.

~John Adams~

Vanity plays lurid tricks with...

Vanity plays lurid tricks with our memory.

~Joseph Conrad~

Vanity is the quicksand of rea...

Vanity is the quicksand of reason.

~George Sand~

Vanity is so secure in the hea...

Vanity is so secure in the heart of man that everyone wants to be admired:  even I who write this, and you who read this.

~Blaise Pascal~

Vanity dies hard; in some obst...

Vanity dies hard; in some obstinate cases it outlives the man.

~Robert Louis Stevenson~

To this principle of vanity, w...

To this principle of vanity, which philosophers call a mean one, and which I do not, I owe a great part of the figure which I have made in life.

~Lord Chesterfield~

Throughout the centuries, man ...

Throughout the centuries, man has considered himself beautiful. I rather suppose that man only believes in his own beauty out of pride; that he is not really beautiful and he suspects this himself; for why does he look on the face of his fellow-man with such scorn?

~Isidore Ducasse Lautreamont~

They say that hens do cackle l...

They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid.

~Ambrose Gwinett Bierce~

There is nothing so agonizing ...

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth.

~Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton~

There are no grades of vanity,...

There are no grades of vanity, there are only grades of ability in concealing it.

~Mark Twain, Notebook, 1898~

The surest cure for vanity is ...

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness.

~Thomas Wolfe~

The only cure for vanity is la...

The only cure for vanity is laughter, and the only fault that is laughable is vanity.

~Henri Bergson~

The common practice of keeping...

The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain.

~John Ruskin~

Pride that dines on vanity, su...

Pride that dines on vanity, sups on contempt.

~Benjamin Franklin~

Pride does not wish to owe and...

Pride does not wish to owe and vanity does not wish to pay.

~Francois De La Rochefoucauld~