Famous quotes containing the word vain:
“It is vain to expect virtue from women till they are, in some degree, independent of men ... Whilst they are absolutely dependent on their husbands they will be cunning, mean, and selfish, and the men who can be gratified by the fawning fondness of spaniel-like affection, have not much delicacy, for love is not to be bought, in any sense of the words, its silken wings are instantly shrivelled up when any thing beside a return in kind is sought.”
—Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797)
“Romeo. Peace, peace, Mercutio, peace!
Thou talk’st of nothing.
Mercutio. 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.”
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616)
“Who ordered, that their longing’s fire
Should be, as soon as kindled, cooled?
Who renders vain their deep desire?—
A God, a God their severance ruled!
And bade betwixt their shores to be
The unplumbed, salt, estranging sea.”
—Matthew Arnold (1822–1888)