vanity

The French courage proceeds from vanity - the German from phlegm - the Turkish from fanaticism & opium - the Spanish from pride - the English from coolness - the Dutch from obstinacy - the Russian from insensibility - but the Italian from anger.

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast.

I will give you a definition of a proud man: he is a man who has neither vanity nor wisdom - one filled with hatreds cannot be vain, neither can he be wise.

I need not print a line, nor conjure with the painter's tools to prove myself an artist . . . Whilst in other spheres of labor the greater part of our life's toil and moil will of a surety end, as the wise man predicted, in vanity and vexation of spirit, here is instant physical refreshment in the work the garden entails, and, in the end, our labor will be crowned with flowers.

It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 't is kept is lighter than vanity.

I think I may boast myself to be, with all possible vanity, the most unlearned and uninformed female who ever dared to be an authoress.

Herein is not only a great vanity, but a great contempt of God's good gifts, that the sweetness of man's breath, being a good gift of God, should be willfully corrupted by this stinking smoke.

Provided a man is not mad, he can be cured of every folly but vanity.

The sin of pride may be a small or a great thing in someone's life, and hurt vanity a passing pinprick, or a self-destroying or ever murderous obsession.

To be beneficent when we can is a duty; and besides this, there are many minds so sympathetically constituted that, without any other motive of vanity or self-interest, they find a pleasure in spreading joy around them, and can take delight in the satisfaction of others so far as it is their own work. But I maintain that in such a case an action of this kind, however proper, however amiable it may be, has nevertheless no true moral worth, but is on a level with other inclinations. . . . For the maxim lacks the moral import, namely, that such actions be done from duty, not from inclination.