Vain Quotes

• Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain.

  

  John Calvin
  • Gospel
  • Vain
  • Useless

• To be a man's own fool is bad enough, but the vain man is everybody's.

  

  William Penn
  • Men
  • Stupid
  • Enough

• Sometimes I'm haunted by the thought that we have only one life and that we live it provisionally, waiting in vain for the day when real life will begin. And so life passes by.

  

  Ignazio Silone
  • Live
  • Waiting
  • Vain

• Few things surpass old wine; and they may preach Who please, the more because they preach in vain.

  

  Lord Byron
  • Vain
  • Preach
  • Old Wine

• Evil labours with vast power and perpetual success - in vain: preparing always only the soil for unexpected good to sprout in.

  

  J. R. R. Tolkien
  • Success
  • Vain
  • Labours

• Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This false warld is but transitory.

  

  William Dunbar
  • World
  • Glory
  • Transitory

• Nature does nothing in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.

  

  Isaac Newton
  • Nature
  • Vain
  • Serve

• Bloated, one Kirchner himself staggers off to work, where all work is in vain and the onslaught of mediocrity flattens everything. Like the cocottes that I painted, that is how one is now. Wiped out, next time gone.

  

  Ernst Ludwig Kirchner
  • Work
  • Mediocrity
  • Wiped

• A vain man can never be utterly ruthless: he wants to win applause and therefore he accommodates himself to others.

  

  Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
  • Vain
  • Applause
  • Accommodates

• Man that is of woman born is apt to be as vain as his mother

  

  Robert Frost
  • Mother
  • Man
  • Woman

• All Empires fall, All ages die, All strife shall be in vain. All Kings go down, All hope must fail, But Tanelorn remains Our Tanelorn remains.

  

  Michael Moorcock
  • Age
  • Fall
  • Failing

• Those dreams that on the silent night intrude, and with false flitting shapes our minds delude ... are mere productions of the brain. And fools consult interpreters in vain.

  

  Jonathan Swift
  • Dreams
  • Silent
  • Productions

• A cockle-fish may as soon crowd the ocean into its narrow shell, as vain man ever comprehend the decrees of God!

  

  William Beveridge
  • Men
  • Ocean
  • Crowds

• True, I talk of dreams, Which are the children of an idle brain, Begot of nothing but vain fantasy, Which is as thin of substance as the air, And more inconstant than the wind, who woos Even now the frozen bosom of the north, And, being anger'd, puffs away from thence, Turning his side to the dew-dropping south.

  

  William Shakespeare
  • Children
  • Dream
  • Brain

• The whole point of being an actor is to get satisfaction out of a role -- unless you're just vain about celebrity. You're always looking for the one thing that will surprise you.

  

  Jonny Lee Miller
  • Actors
  • Roles
  • Surprise

• If I can stop one heart from breaking…” Emily Dickinson If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain; If I can ease one life the aching, Or cool one pain, Or help one fainting robin Unto his nest again, I shall not live in vain.

  

  Emily Dickinson
  • Heart
  • Help
  • Pain

• If my serenade of song and story should serve as a pillow for some composer's head, as yet perhaps unborn, to dream and build on our fond melodies in his tomorrow, I have not labored in vain.

  

  William Christopher Handy
  • Dream
  • Song
  • Tomorrow

• Shall we continue to bear his name in vain? … Shall we not represent that name to the world?

  

  Ellet J. Waggoner
  • World
  • Name
  • Represent

• And in vain does the dreamer rummage about in his old dreams, raking them over as though they were a heap of cinders, looking into these cinders for some spark, however tiny, to fan it into a flame so as to warm his chilled blood by it and revive in it all that he held so dear before, all that touched his heart, that made his blood course through his veins, that drew tears from his eyes, and that so splendidly deceived him!

  

  Fyodor Dostoevsky
  • Tears
  • Dreamer
  • Cinders

• It is vain to complain of fortune while we fail in policy and conduct.

  

  Norm MacDonald
  • Policy
  • Fortune
  • Vain

• The question eventually must be raised: Is it a criminal offense to take the name of the Lord in vain? When people curse their parents, it unquestionably is a capital crime (Ex. 21:17). The son or daughter is under the lawful jurisdiction of the family. The integrity of the family must be maintained by the threat of death. Clearly, cursing God (blasphemy) is a comparable crime, and is therefore a capital crime (Lev. 24:16).

  

  Gary North
  • Lord
  • Offense
  • Criminal

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

  

  John Ruskin
  • Society
  • Practice
  • Vain

• All in the golden afternoon Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide.

  

  Lewis Carroll
  • Guide
  • Afternoon
  • Glide

• A vain man is a nauseous creature: he is so full of himself that he has no room for anything else, be it never so good or deserving.

  

  William Penn
  • Men
  • Creatures
  • Deserving

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