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If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain. -- Emily Dickinson
It is in vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility: they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. -- Charlotte Bronte
Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves; vanity, to what we would have others think of us. -- Jane Austen
That we we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. -- Abraham Lincoln
I have been vain since birth. -- Wallace Shawn
Life and death are important. Don't suffer them in vain. -- Bodhidharma
Husbands and wives generally understand when opposition will be vain. -- Jane Austen
Fame often makes a writer vain, but seldom makes him proud. -- W. H. Auden
Nothing makes one so vain as being told that one is a sinner. -- Oscar Wilde
Beauties in vain their pretty eyes may roll; charms strike the sight, but merit wins the soul. -- Alexander Pope
Live for yourself and you will live in vain; Live for others, and you will live again. -- Bob Marley
If we have not peace within ourselves, it is in vain to seek it from outward sources. -- Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Sweet is true love that is given in vain, and sweet is death that takes away pain. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson
We are so vain that we even care for the opinion of those we don't care for. -- Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
How vain it is to sit down to write when you have not stood up to live. -- Henry David Thoreau
All writers are vain, selfish and lazy, and at the very bottom of their motives lies a mystery. -- George Orwell
The common practice of keeping up appearances with society is a mere selfish struggle of the vain with the vain. -- John Ruskin
To say that a man is vain means merely that he is pleased with the effect he produces on other people. -- Max Beerbohm
Every writer is a narcissist. This does not mean that he is vain; it only means that he is hopelessly self-absorbed. -- Leo Rosten
I think the best actors are the most generous, the kindest, the greatest people and at their worst they are vain, greedy and insecure. -- Kenneth Branagh
I have been vain since birth. I expected other people to like what I did, although my vanity has definitely diminished over the years. -- Wallace Shawn
I am intrigued by glamorous women A vain woman is continually taking out a compact to repair her makeup. A glamorous woman knows she doesn't need to. -- Clark Gable
A mighty pain to love it is, And 'tis a pain that pain to miss; But, of all pains, the greatest pain Is to love, but love in vain. -- Abraham Cowley
In vain have I struggled. It will not do. My feelings will not be repressed. You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you. -- Jane Austen
Vain wisdom all, and false philosophy. -- John Milton
Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake. -- Quintilian
Vain, weak-built isthmus, which dost proudly rise Up between two eternities! -- Abraham Cowley
Vain, very vain is my search to find; that happiness which only centers in the mind. -- Oliver Goldsmith
I do not propose to add anything to what has already been written concerning the loss of the "Lady Vain." -- H. G. Wells
Vain indeed is all overweening pride in the conquest even of the entire universe if one has not conquered one's own passions. -- Sri Aurobindo
Vain are the thousand creeds That move men's hearts, unutterably vain; Worthless as withered weeds, Or idlest froth amid the boundless main. -- Emily Bronte
Vain-glorious men are the scorn of the wise, the admiration of fools, the idols of paradise, and the slaves of their own vaunts. -- Francis Bacon
Vain the ambition of kings Who seek by trophies and dead things To leave a living name behind, And weave but nets to catch the wind. -- John Webster
All speech is vain and empty unless it be accompanied by action. -- Demosthenes
Vexed sailors cursed the rain, for which poor shepherds prayed in vain. -- Edmund Waller
Do not follow vain desires; for verily he who prospers is preserved from lust, greed and anger. -- Abu Bakr
No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men. -- Thomas Carlyle
You can't cross the sea merely by standing and staring at the water. Don't let yourself indulge in vain wishes. -- Laurence J. Peter
Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God. -- Thomas a Kempis
And they write innumerable books; being too vain and distracted for silence: seeking every one after his own elevation, and dodging his emptiness. -- T. S. Eliot
With fools, there is no companionship. Rather than to live with men who are selfish, vain, quarrelsome, and obstinate, let a man walk alone. -- Buddha
I've made my share of mistakes along the way, but if I have changed even one life for the better, I haven't lived in vain. -- Muhammad Ali
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. -- Florence Nightingale
It is vain to say human beings ought to be satisfied with tranquility; they must have action; and they will make it if they cannot find it. -- Charlotte Bronte
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. -- Lord Byron
The common idea that success spoils people by making them vain, egotistic and self-complacent is erroneous; on the contrary it makes them, for the most part, humble, tolerant and kind. -- W. Somerset Maugham
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. -- Michelangelo
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. -- William Law
One cannot long remain so absorbed in contemplation of emptiness without being increasingly attracted to it. In vain, one bestows on it the name of infinity; this does not change its nature. -- Emile Durkheim
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. -- Mary Wollstonecraft
When virtue and modesty enlighten her charms, the lustre of a beautiful woman is brighter than the stars of heaven, and the influence of her power it is in vain to resist. -- Akhenaton
The haunting of history is ever present in Barcelona. I see cities as organisms, as living creatures. To me, Madrid is a man and Barcelona is a woman. And it's a woman who's extremely vain. -- Carlos Ruiz Zafon
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. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Many have a vague idea that they must make some wonderful effort in order to gain the favor of God. But all self-dependence is vain. It is only by connecting with Jesus through faith that the sinner becomes a hopeful, believing child of God. -- Ellen G. White
You know, Castle, like anyone else, is a human being first. If you take a human being - especially a vain one like 'Castle' -and you bring in a gorgeous woman and have sparks fly, who can help themselves? What are you gonna do? Sparks happen! -- Nathan Fillion
real beauty is never vain. -- Ellen Buckingham Mathews
I'm not vain, I'm insecure. -- Mariah Carey
Nature does nothing in vain. -- Aristotle
I'm vain because I'm imperfect. -- Pete Doherty
Emperors are vain and useless things. -- Scott Westerfeld
Laws without morals are in vain. -- Benjamin Franklin
Nature has made nothing in vain. -- Delarivier Manley
For monarchs seldom sigh in vain. -- Walter Scott
Belief unconfirmed by experiment is vain. -- Francesco Redi
Against boredom even gods struggle in vain. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Violence is just, where kindness is vain. -- Pierre Corneille
Against stupidity, God Himself fights in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
Who talks much, must talk in vain. -- John Gay
I'm glad I haven't lived in vain. -- Saul Bellow
An old dog barks not in vain. -- George Herbert
Nature makes nothing incomplete, and nothing in vain. -- Aristotle
The vain being is the really solitary being. -- Berthold Auerbach
Do not desire your neighbor's wife in vain. -- Julian Tuwim
And panting Time toil'd after him in vain. -- Samuel Johnson
Not vain the weakest, if their force unite. -- Homer
Without the Gospel everything is useless and vain. -- John Calvin
How vain, without the merit, is the name. -- Homer
Sweet is true love, though given in vain. -- Alfred Lord Tennyson
Do not waste this life in vain pursuits. -- Isaac of Nineveh
Mistress-like, its brilliance vain, highly capricious and inane... -- Alexander Pushkin
Look what a little vain dust we are! -- Joseph Addison
And not a vanity is given in vain. -- Alexander Pope
Against boredom the gods themselves fight in vain. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
For good undone, and gifts misspent, and resolutions vain -- Adam Lindsay Gordon
Ambition, idly vain; revenge and malice swell her train. -- Roger Penrose
Against stupidity the very gods themselves contend in vain. -- Friedrich Schiller
I do not allow myself vain regrets or foreboding. -- Mary Boykin Chesnut
Opinion is a light, vain, crude, and imperfect thing. -- Ben Jonson
Blasphemous words betray the vain foolishness of the speaker. -- Philip Sidney
Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique. -- Peter Ustinov
Without common sense, all thine efforts are in vain. -- Rudolf Steiner
Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique -- Peter Ustinov
Heaven and earth fight in vain against a dunce! -- Friedrich Schiller
To so perverse a sex all grace is vain. -- John Dryden
I'm vain enough to want do a movie again. -- Gwen Stefani
The wise needn't ask, the fool asks in vain. -- Ursula K. Le Guin
Unless what we do is useful, glory is vain -- Latin Proverb
And weep the more, because I weep in vain. -- Thomas Gray
Only against death does man cry out in vain. -- Malcolm Lowry
May I not seem to have lived in vain. -- Tycho Brahe
You are vain and wicked- as a genius should be. -- Gunter Grass
Like other self-educated men, he was vain of his vocabulary. -- Ross MacDonald
But vain to popularize profundities, and all truth is profound. -- Herman Melville
All art preserves mysteries which aesthetic philosophers tackle in vain. -- Anthony Burgess
They never sought in vain that sought the Lord alright! -- Robert Burns
Whilst I yet live, let me not live in vain. -- Joseph Addison
Only vain people wage war against the vanity of others. -- Marguerite Gardiner, Countess of Blessington
Royalty consists not in vain pomp, but in great virtues -- Agesilaus II
Liberty a word without which all other words are vain. -- Robert Green Ingersoll
I've been accused of being very vain about my apathy. -- Bret Easton Ellis
That power is in vain which is never in use. -- Benjamin Whichcote
Or, rather, let us be more simple and less vain. -- Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Or hast thou known the world so long in vain? -- John Dryden
In the mountains of truth, you never climb in vain. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
When words are scarce they are seldom spent in vain. -- William Shakespeare
We waste our lights in vain, like lamps by day. -- William Shakespeare
In the mountains of wisdom no climbing is in vain. -- Nhat Hanh
Most Hollywood men are too vain and shallow for me. -- Alley Mills
It is vain futility to analyze the algebra of time. -- Dejan Stojanovic

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