The basis of tragedy is man's helplessness against disease, war and death; the basis of comedy is man's helplessness against vanity (the vanity of love, greed, lust, power).
Dawn Powell

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.
Blaise Pascal

The day when a sportsman stops thinking above all else of the happiness in his own effort and the intoxication of the power and physical balance he derives from it, the day when he lets considerations of vanity or interest take over, on this day his ideal will die.
Pierre de Coubertin

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau

The happy story right now is the full page in Vanity Fair, which gives me a great deal of exposure.
Jackie DeShannon

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.
Napoleon Bonaparte

The highest form of vanity is love of fame.
George Santayana

The knowledge of yourself will preserve you from vanity.
Miguel de Cervantes

The love of one's own sex is precious, for it is neither provoked by vanity nor retained by flattery; it is genuine and sincere.
Maria Mitchell

The man of life upright has a guiltless heart, free from all dishonest deeds or thought of vanity.
Thomas Carlyle

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

The person is always happy who is in the presence of something they cannot know in full. A person as advanced far in the study of morals who has mastered the difference between pride and vanity.
Nicolas Chamfort

The surest cure for vanity is loneliness.
Tom Wolfe

The truest characters of ignorance are vanity and pride and arrogance.
Samuel Butler

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.
Samuel Johnson

The vanity of loving fine clothes and new fashion, and placing value on ourselves by them is one of the most childish pieces of folly.
Matthew Hale

The vanity of men, a constant insult to women, is also the ground for the implicit feminine claim of superior sensitivity and morality.
Patricia Meyer Spacks

The vanity of teaching doth oft tempt a man to forget that he is a blockhead.
George Savile

The whole business is built on ego, vanity, self-satisfaction, and it's total crap to pretend it's not.
George Michael

The woman who appeals to a man's vanity may stimulate him, the woman who appeals to his heart may attract him, but it is the woman who appeals to his imagination who gets him.
Helen Rowland