A Quote by Blaise Pascal

Vanity is but the surface.

Blaise Pascal

Quote Topics

Surface Vanity

Quote Author

Blaise Pascal
French - Philosopher
June 19, 1623 - August 19, 1662

If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by vanity only that they appreciate their own worth. Without this kind of vanity they would not be great. And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing.

Yousuf Karsh

You can't get at the thing itself, the real nature of the sitter, by stripping away the surface. You can only get beyond the surface by working with the surface. All that you can do is manipulate that surface - gesture, costume, expression - radically and correctly.

Richard Avedon

Why do you beat the air and run in vain? Every occupation has a purpose, obviously. Tell me then, what is the purpose of all the activity of the world? Answer, I challenge you! It is vanity of vanity: all is vanity.

Saint John Chrysostom

Vanity, in a fairy tale, will make you evil. Vanity in the real world will drive you nuts. Vanity makes you say things like “I deserved a better life than this.

Richard Siken

And could I look upon her without compassion, seeing her punishment in the ruin she was, in her profound unfitness for this earth on which she was placed, in the vanity of sorrow which had become a master mania, like the vanity of penitence, the vanity of remorse, the vanity of unworthiness, and other monstrous vanities that have been curses in this world?

Charles Dickens

Vanity is a relative of Pride; Vanity is talkative, pride is silent. When Vanity and Pride get together, they could make monstrosities.

Samael Aun Weor

People don't understand that the feel of the surface is so important for a footballer. The ball travels on the surface; our feet move on the surface - all of that goes into how the game is actually played.

Abby Wambach

I would like to start by emphasizing the importance of surfaces. It is at a surface where many of our most interesting and useful phenomena occur. We live for example on the surface of a planet. It is at a surface where the catalysis of chemical reactions occur. It is essentially at a surface of a plant that sunlight is converted to a sugar. In electronics, most if not all active circuit elements involve non-equilibrium phenomena occurring at surfaces. Much of biology is concerned with reactions at a surface.

Walter Houser Brattain

You have a great deal of yourself on the line, writing- your vanity is at stake. You discover a tricky thing about fiction writing; a certain amount of vanity is necessary to be able to do it all, but any vanity above that certain amount is lethal.

David Foster Wallace

Healthy vanity sweeps through life. Sickly vanity lies in bed.

Mason Cooley

Is there any vanity greater than the vanity of those who believe themselves without it?

Carolyn Heilbrun

It is the vanity of women to spend hours in front of the mirror. It is the vanity of men not to bother.

Simon Munnery

It beareth the name of Vanity Fair, because the town where 't is kept is lighter than vanity.

John Bunyan

Vanity was the beginning and the end of Sir Walter Elliot's character; vanity of person and of situation.

Jane Austen

It is the utterly destructive quality. When you say vanity, you are thinking of the kind that admires itself in mirrors and buys things to deck itself out in. But that is merely personal conceit. Real vanity is something quite different. A matter not of person but of personality. Vanity says, "I must have this because I am me." It is a frightening thing because it is incurable.