Definition of Vanity

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Vanity

The quality or state of being vain; want of substance to satisfy desire; emptiness; unsubstantialness; unrealness; falsity.

An inflation of mind upon slight grounds; empty pride inspired by an overweening conceit of one's personal attainments or decorations; an excessive desire for notice or approval; pride; ostentation; conceit.

That which is vain; anything empty, visionary, unreal, or unsubstantial; fruitless desire or effort; trifling labor productive of no good; empty pleasure; vain pursuit; idle show; unsubstantial enjoyment.

One of the established characters in the old moralities and puppet shows. See Morality, n., 5.

Related Definitions:

An, And, Anything, Approval, Being, By, Conceit, Desire, Effort, Emptiness, Empty, Enjoyment, Established, Excessive, Falsity, For, Fruitless, Good, Idle, In, Inflation, Inspired, Is, Labor, Mind, Moralities, Morality, No, Notice, Of, Old, One, Or, Ostentation, Overweening, Personal, Pleasure, Pride, Productive, Puppet, Pursuit, Quality, Satisfy, See, Show, Slight, State, Substance, That, The, To, Trifling, Unreal, Unsubstantial, Upon, Vain, Visionary, Want, Which

Vanity Quotations

It is just like man's vanity and impertinence to call an animal dumb because it is dumb to his dull perceptions.
Mark Twain

Behind all their personal vanity, women themselves always have an impersonal contempt for woman.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Our vanity is hardest to wound precisely when our pride has just been wounded.
Friedrich Nietzsche

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

Vanity is a mark of humility rather than of pride.
Jonathan Swift

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

Vanity working on a weak head, produces every sort of mischief.
Jane Austen

By rendering the labor of one, the property of the other, they cherish pride, luxury, and vanity on one side; on the other, vice and servility, or hatred and revolt.
James Madison

Vanity is but the surface.
Blaise Pascal

Vanity of science. Knowledge of physical science will not console me for ignorance of morality in time of affliction, but knowledge of morality will always console me for ignorance of physical science.
Blaise Pascal

Vanity Translations

vanity in Dutch is nietigheid, ijdelheid
vanity in German is Eitelkeit, Einbildung
vanity in Latin is irritum
vanity in Spanish is vanidad

Quotes