No great man lives in vain. The history of the world is but the biography of great men.
Thomas Carlyle

No rules exist, and examples are simply life-savers answering the appeals of rules making vain attempts to exist.
Andre Breton

Nothing so soothes our vanity as a display of greater vanity in others; it make us vain, in fact, of our modesty.
Louis Kronenberger

Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.
Carl Jung

Oh, how great peace and quietness would he possess who should cut off all vain anxiety and place all his confidence in God.
Thomas Kempis

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

One of the biggest mistakes a photographer can make is to look at the real world and cling to the vain hope that next time his film will somehow bear a closer resemblance to it.
Galen Rowell

Our pleasance here is all vain glory, This false world is but transitory.
William Dunbar

Pain and foolishness lead to great bliss and complete knowledge, for Eternal Wisdom created nothing under the sun in vain.
Khalil Gibran

Pavarotti is not vain, but conscious of being unique.
Peter Ustinov

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.
Franz Grillparzer

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

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

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 entire deaths of Vietnam died in vain. And they're dying in vain right this very second. And you know what's worse than a soldier dying in vain? It's more soldiers dying in vain. That's what's worse.
Mike Gravel

The generality have considered that disease is but a confused and disordered effort in Nature, thrown down from her proper state, and defending herself in vain.
Thomas Sydenham

The man for whom time stretches out painfully is one waiting in vain, disappointed at not finding tomorrow already continuing yesterday.
Theodor Adorno

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

The praise that comes from love does not make us vain, but more humble.
James M. Barrie

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