"Vainglory" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... Or, rather, it would add to our population only those who desire to save instead of those who desire to waste. We should increase through the new-comers in virtuous economy, and not as now in spendthrift vainglory. In the end the effect would be the same for civilization as if we shrank to the ...
— Imaginary Interviews • W. D. Howells
... henceforward he is ware of them; and so he brings righteousness busily to birth, until he is led to God and may sit with heavenly citizens in everlasting seats. Therefore he stands clear in conscience and is steadfast in all good ways the which is never noyed with worldly heaviness nor gladdened with vainglory." ...
— Our Lady Saint Mary • J. G. H. Barry
... No plague hath done mankind so much harm. Look into our histories, and you shall almost meet with no other subject, but what a company [1740]of harebrains have done in their rage. We may do well therefore to put this in our procession amongst the rest; "From all blindness of heart, from pride, vainglory, and hypocrisy, from envy, hatred and malice, anger, and all such pestiferous perturbations, ...
— The Anatomy of Melancholy • Democritus Junior
... Officers, because He sees that such success would be their ruin. The spirit of Nebuchadnezzar is in them. He cannot build Babylon, or London, or New York, or anything else by their instrumentality, because He sees it would create the spirit of vainglory and boasting, or of ambition; make them dissatisfied with their position; or otherwise curse them and those about them. Look at Saul. What a lesson his history has in it for us all. 'When thou wast little in thine own sight wast thou not made ...
— The Authoritative Life of General William Booth • George Scott Railton
... need be said that when Lufki-Humma was born, the mother arose at once from her couch of skins, herself bore the infant to the neighboring bayou and bathed it—not for singularity, nor for independence, nor for vainglory, but only as one of the heart-curdling conventionalities which made up the experience of that most pitiful of holy ...
— The Grandissimes • George Washington Cable
... of Russia and her Allies the present war has as its object the crushing and dispersing of "the nest of militarism," constructed in the centre of Europe by the hand of Bismarck and the vainglory of Wilhelm II. That was clearly defined last autumn by our diplomatic department. That is precisely the way in which it was and is defined by all classes of the Russian people, not excluding those who are represented by Kropotkin ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 5, August, 1915 • Various
... with our own faith and leave others to enjoy theirs in peace. Cease to look upon yourselves as better than the rest of the world. I wish you well, for a pride founded on self-respect is pleasing in mine eyes; but take heed lest pride degenerate into vainglory. Farewell! rest assured ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... But since it would be very long in such a volume as this to count up the successions [i.e., series of bishops] in all the churches, we confound all those who in any way, whether through self-pleasing or vainglory, or through blindness and evil opinion, gather together otherwise than they ought, by pointing out the tradition derived from the Apostles of the greatest, most ancient, and universally known Church, founded and established ...
— A Source Book for Ancient Church History • Joseph Cullen Ayer, Jr., Ph.D.
... this, that in his hurry to rule all the world, he forgot to rule himself. At first, he wasted his estate in show and luxury, always intending to be famous, and destroying his own fame all the while by his vainglory and haste. Then, to retrieve his losses, he hit upon the peopling of Florida, which thou and I will see done some day, by God's blessing; for I and some good friends of mine have an errand there as well ...
— Westward Ho! • Charles Kingsley
... When I gave up the tying of ribbons, still I tied my garment about me: When I gave up tying my garment, still I covered my body in its folds. So, when I give up passion, I see that anger remains; And when I renounce anger, greed is with me still; And when greed is vanquished, pride and vainglory remain; When the mind is detached and casts Maya away, still it clings to the letter. Kabr says, "Listen to me, dear Sadhu! the ...
— Songs of Kabir • Rabindranath Tagore (trans.)
... explain this more fully. What is the meaning of this expression, "Be ye perfect?" Why is it that in this discourse, instead of being commanded to perform religious duties, we are commanded to think of being like God? Will not that inflame our pride, and increase our natural vainglory? Now the nature and possibility of human perfection, what it is and how it is possible, are both contained in one single expression in the text. "Even as your Father which is in Heaven is perfect." The relationship between father and son implies consanguinity, likeness, similarity of ...
— Sermons Preached at Brighton - Third Series • Frederick W. Robertson
... is insane; if he even praises himself, as he did to me lately, he gets into a rage in order to do it, and perhaps unwittingly you annoyed him by the way you asked. If you put it to his generosity and vainglory you would get it easier than from his sense of justice and right. He has not much ...
— Oscar Wilde, Volume 2 (of 2) - His Life and Confessions • Frank Harris
... affluent cape-merchant, directed in his will, 1628, that he be buried "without any pomp or vainglory," he probably was protesting the tendency towards elaborate funerals, even in the early days of the Colony. It is not known whether or not his wishes in this respect were carried out; however, he was, no doubt, buried in his garden near ...
— Domestic Life in Virginia in the Seventeenth Century - Jamestown 350th Anniversary Historical Booklet Number 17 • Annie Lash Jester
... perpetuate this picture, to the shame of such a man as you." He was aware, too, of the position he had won for himself in English literature. He knew that people in after-days would ask about him; and it was with no sort of unwarrantable vainglory that he gave Percy certain materials for a biography which he wished him to undertake. ...
— Goldsmith - English Men of Letters Series • William Black
... do I! because I abhor vainglory, and I know these affairs are now a part of established history. No, friend, you cannot destroy my credit in this world, whereas in the world for which I am bound, you tell me, they make no account of our doings. So, whether or not I did these things, I shall always retain, in this ...
— Figures of Earth • James Branch Cabell
... of sin. I recke never, when that they be buried, Though that their soules go a blackburied. For certes *many a predication *preaching is often inspired Cometh oft-time of evil intention;* by evil motives* Some for pleasance of folk, and flattery, To be advanced by hypocrisy; And some for vainglory, and some for hate. For, when I dare not otherwise debate, Then will I sting him with my tongue smart* *sharply In preaching, so that he shall not astart* *escape To be defamed falsely, if that he Hath trespass'd* to my brethren ...
— The Canterbury Tales and Other Poems • Geoffrey Chaucer
... thy Prince had taken it off; thou didst sinfully sleep and lose thy choice thing; thou wast also almost persuaded to go back at the sight of the lions; and when thou talkest of thy journey, and of what thou hast heard and seen, thou art inwardly desirous of vainglory in all that thou ...
— Library of the World's Best Literature, Ancient and Modern, Vol. 7 • Various
... Belshazzar, to exhibit his vainglory, proclaims throughout Babylon, that all the great ones should assemble on a set day, at the Sultan's feast.] The{n}ne is bolde Balta[gh]ar bienkkes hy{m} ones, To vouche on a vayment of his vayne g[l]orie; Hit is not i{n}nogh{e} to ...
— Early English Alliterative Poems - in the West-Midland Dialect of the Fourteenth Century • Various
... had gifted me with an exigent conscience and a turn for oratory, I would, I like to think, have publicly confessed, at that first public performance, to all those tributary clarifying rills to the play's progress: but, as it was, vainglory combined with an aversion to "speech-making" to compel a taciturn if smirking acceptance of the curtain-call with which an indulgent audience flustered the nominal author of The Jewel Merchants.... Now, in any case, it is due my collaborators to tell you that The Jewel Merchants has amply ...
— The Jewel Merchants - A Comedy In One Act • James Branch Cabell
... but a neophyte where Madame is an expert. I know the superficial nature of cats. Now and then without vainglory I can say I know their hearts; but Madame penetrates to and holds commune with their souls. And a cat's soul, monsieur, is a wonderful thing. Once it was divine—in ancient Egypt. Doubtless monsieur has heard of Pasht? Holy men spent their lives in approaching the cat-soul. Madame was born ...
— Simon the Jester • William J. Locke
... things will ye no do. Mind ye not the taunts and scorns that the Earl—the late Earl o' Douglas that is—put upon us a'? Think on his pride and vainglory, whilk Scripture says shall be brocht low. Think in especial how this righteous judgment that has fallen on him and on his brother has cleared ...
— The Black Douglas • S. R. Crockett
... attempt was in manner and form following, and I print it here, I sincerely trust, out of no vainglory, but solely with the hope of ...
— The Complete Poetical Works of James Russell Lowell • James Lowell
... preacher's convictions and the energy of his utterance. On had gone the stream of rhetoric, the denunciations, the satire, the tremendous assertions of God's mind and purposes. The lash that was wielded was far-reaching; all the vices of the age—irreligion, blasphemy, drunkenness, extravagance, vainglory, loose living—fell under its sting. The condemnation was general, and each man looked to see his neighbor wince. The occurrence at the ball last night,—he was on that for final theme, was he? There was a slight movement throughout the congregation. Some glanced to where ...
— Audrey • Mary Johnston
... feudal retainers," explained Hadden, not without vainglory. "They're My Followers. They belong to My Family. I tell you, they come expensive, though; you can't fill up all these retainers on tinned salmon for nothing; but whenever I could get it, I would give 'em squid. Squid's good for natives, but I don't care for it, do you?—or shark ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 13 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... years Mary did not occupy a prominent place in the Christian communities; even in the fourth century she was still regarded as a human woman and denied divinity by St. Chrysostom, who reproached her with vainglory. But in proportion as Christ transcended humanity, and was more dogmatically and formally interpreted by the Church—more especially the Greek Church—the desire for a mediator between the wrathful Deity ...
— The Evolution of Love • Emil Lucka
... think of advertising his own virtues or bragging of his own deeds. Nor would any Nation wishing to stand well in its own eyes and in the eyes of the world boast of its own conquests over weaker foes or shout itself hoarse in the exuberance of vainglory. ...
— Successful Recitations • Various
... to Franklin as a sincere devotee of liberty. Sir Arthur Lee had honoured me with a certain kindness and some excellent advice; consequently my head was somewhat turned, even as the heads of those whom I railed at so bitterly were turned, and to such an extent that this little vainglory brought sorely needed relief to my agonies of mind. Perhaps you will shrug your shoulders when I own that I took the greatest pleasure in the world in leaving my hair unpowdered, in wearing big shoes, and appearing everywhere in a ...
— Mauprat • George Sand
... head, what was it made the Decii so forward to offer themselves up as a sacrifice for an atonement to the angry gods, to rescue and stipulate for their indebted country? What made Curtius, on a like occasion, so desperately to throw away his life, but only vainglory, that is condemned, and unanimously voted for a main branch of Folly by all wise men? What is more unreasonable and foppish (say they) than for any man, out of ambition to some office, to bow, to scrape and cringe to the gaping ...
— In Praise of Folly - Illustrated with Many Curious Cuts • Desiderius Erasmus
... without any vainglory, but in the utmost confidence. She glanced covertly at him. He seemed to her strong and full of resource. But she would not ...
— The Young Trailers - A Story of Early Kentucky • Joseph A. Altsheler
... he preserves a name for truth, the dog has been credited with modesty. It is amazing how the use of language blunts the faculties of man—that because vainglory finds no vent in words, creatures supplied with eyes have been unable to detect a fault so gross and obvious. If a small spoiled dog were suddenly to be endowed with speech, he would prate interminably, and still ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson, Volume 9 • Robert Louis Stevenson
... it is an error to think that our advantages, whatever they are, should be put to the service of our vanity. Each of them constitutes for him who enjoys it an obligation and not a reason for vainglory. Material wealth, power, knowledge, gifts of the heart and mind, become so much cause for discord when they serve to nourish pride. They remain beneficent only so long as they are the source of modesty ...
— The Simple Life • Charles Wagner
... View, Concord, N. H., Before 2,500 Members Of The Mother Church, 1897 Well Doinge Is The Fruite Of Doinge Well Little Gods Advantage Of Mind-Healing A Card Spirit And Law Truth-Healing Heart To Heart Things To Be Thought Of Unchristian Rumor Vainglory Compounds Close Of The Massachusetts Metaphysical College Malicious Reports Loyal Christian Scientists The March Primary Class Obtrusive Mental Healing Wedlock Judge Not New Commandment A Cruce Salus Comparison to English Barmaids A Christian Science Statute Advice To Students Notice ...
— Miscellaneous Writings, 1883-1896 • Mary Baker Eddy
... it, but more, it has no desire to have it known; and, the truer it is, the greater the desire to have it unknown save to God and its own true self. In other words, it is not sicklied o'er with a semi-insane desire for notoriety or vainglory, and hence never weakens itself nor harasses any one else by lengthy recitals of its good deeds. It is not the professional good-doing. It is simply living its natural life, open-minded, open-hearted, doing each day what its hands find to do, and ...
— What All The World's A-Seeking • Ralph Waldo Trine
... himself in the tongue, he had lived in the bazaars, to no end? He was still the craven who had sent in his papers? The quiet confidence with which he had revealed his plan to Lieutenant Sutch over the table in the Criterion grill-room was the mere vainglory of a man who continually deceived ...
— The Four Feathers • A. E. W. Mason
... presumed to dedicate to your Serenity this trivial offering because of my esteeming it to be not undeserving of your acceptance. The truth is otherwise: your postulant approaches not spurred toward you by vainglory, but rather by equity, and equity's plain need to acknowledge that he who seeks to write of noble ladies must necessarily implore at outset the patronage of her who is the light and mainstay of our age. I humbly bring my ...
— Chivalry • James Branch Cabell
... Boston, having little active work to do, were endeavoring to forget the irksomeness and the humiliation of their situation. Through no fault of their own the position was a hard one; they had boasted, and were not allowed to make good their vainglory; they had despised their adversaries, and were cooped up in a provincial town. In letters home they uneasily endeavored to explain their inaction; by return mail they learned what the wits of London had to say of both them and the country. "Mrs. Brittania," remarked ...
— The Siege of Boston • Allen French
... inordinately in love with her, though he deferred his blandishments to a more convenient season, and by way of supporting his character for holiness began instead to chide her, telling her (among other novelties) that this was vainglory: whereto the lady retorted that he was a blockhead, and could not distinguish one degree of beauty from another. Wherefore Fra Alberto, lest he should occasion her too much chagrin, cut short the confession, and suffered ...
— The Decameron, Volume I • Giovanni Boccaccio
... 18. Vainglory [10]—glory, be to God!—so far as I know, there is no reason why I should have any; for I see plainly that in these things which God sends me I have no part myself; on the contrary, God makes me conscious of my own wretchedness; for whatever reflections I might be ...
— The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus • Teresa of Avila
... was always on his guard against showy virtues, which of their very nature encourage vainglory, the bane of ...
— The Spirit of St. Francis de Sales • Jean Pierre Camus
... good and generous creatures. They are subject to many such as men are subject to: among the rest, they disturb the neighbourhood in the discussion of their private causes; they quarrel and fight on small motives, such as a little bad food, or a little vainglory, or the sex. But it must be something present or near that excites them; and they calculate not the extent of evil they may ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor
... about to turn the peasant out of his house when a monk enters. He then lays the matter before the new-comer, who promises to talk the peasant over with soft words; for, says he, there is nothing accomplished with vainglory. He thereupon takes him aside and explains it to him by the illustration of a merchant whose gain on the wares he sells is not called usury, and argues that therefore other forms of gain in business should not be described by this odious name. But the peasant will have none of this comparison; ...
— German Culture Past and Present • Ernest Belfort Bax
... use of weapons and courageous in the battle-field. He is not, however, bound to have the special science of a general, nor must he in times of peace profess unique devotion to the art of war: that would argue a coarseness of nature or vainglory. Again, he must excel in all manly sports and exercises, so as, if possible, to beat the actual professors of each game, or feat of skill on their own ground. Yet here also he should avoid mere habits of display, which are unworthy of a man who aspires to be a gentleman and not an athlete. ...
— Renaissance in Italy, Volume 1 (of 7) • John Addington Symonds
... the Late Revolution, is perhaps the most frantic of all the Jacobite libels. In this tract the Prince of Orange is gravely accused of having ordered fifty of his wounded English soldiers to be burned alive. The governing principle of his whole conduct, it is said, is not vainglory, or ambition, or avarice, but a deadly hatred of Englishmen and a desire to make them miserable. The nation is vehemently adjured, on peril of incurring the severest judgments, to rise up and free itself ...
— The History of England from the Accession of James II. - Volume 4 (of 5) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... dahingestellt bleiben. Der Historiker darf sich jedoch nie durch apologetische Zwecke leiten lassen; sein einziges Ziel soll die Ergrundung der Wahrheit sein.—PASTOR, Geschichte der Pabste, ii. 545. Church history falsely written is a school of vainglory, hatred, and uncharitableness; truly written, it is a discipline of humility, of charity, of mutual love.—SIR W. HAMILTON, Discussions, 506. The more trophies and crowns of honour the Church of former ages can be shown to have won in the service of her adorable head, the more tokens her history ...
— Lectures on Modern history • Baron John Emerich Edward Dalberg Acton
... Further, a counselor is inconsistent if he persuades the contrary to what he intends. But when the devil set Christ on a pinnacle of the Temple, he purposed to tempt Him to pride or vainglory. Therefore it was inconsistent to urge Him to cast Himself thence: for this would be contrary to pride or vainglory, which ...
— Summa Theologica, Part III (Tertia Pars) - From the Complete American Edition • Thomas Aquinas
... finger of scorn, to taunt them for their inferiority or helplessness, is like putting out the eyes and clipping the wings of the eagle, and then reproaching him because he can neither see nor fly. To boast of our superior refinement, intelligence and virtue, is the extreme of vainglory, and adding insult ...
— Thoughts on African Colonization • William Lloyd Garrison
... sank slowly into a chair. "George—George stole from me— stole money from me!" he whispered. His face was white. His pride and vainglory were broken. He was a haggard, shaken figure. His self- righteousness was levelled in ...
— The Judgment House • Gilbert Parker
... and economy, and she smoked her cob-pipe as did those other ladies of Lincoln County who had married into far less exalted stations than her own. He put these simple survivals down to her native goodness of heart, which would not allow of her succumbing to mere pride and vainglory, for he no more doubted their narrative than they, doubted it themselves, which was ...
— The Prodigal Judge • Vaughan Kester
... that is, as the term indicates a belief in divine beings corresponding to our PRESENT conception of ourselves—that is as separate personalities having each a separate and limited character and function, and animated by the separatist motives of ambition, possession, power, vainglory, superiority, patronage, self-greed, self-satisfaction, etc.—in so far as anthropomorphism is the expression of that kind of belief it is of course destined, with the illusion from which it springs, to pass away. When man arrives ...
— Pagan & Christian Creeds - Their Origin and Meaning • Edward Carpenter
... One may without vainglory recall the good that for us and for others has been accomplished in our limited circle, the least significant aspects of which cannot but excite the observer's admiration, which would be greatly increased ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. II • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke
... though his heart were clapping hands for joy within him. And he thought to himself, "Surely in all the world God has no more beautiful house than this which I have built with such long labor and at so princely an outlay of my treasure." And thus the Prince Bishop fell into the sin of vainglory, and, though he was a holy man, he did not perceive that he had fallen, so filled with gladness was he at the ...
— Christmas in Legend and Story - A Book for Boys and Girls • Elva S. Smith
... on those that have injured them that they may be terrified from doing the like for the time to come. By these ends they measure all their designs, and manage them so, that it is visible that the appetite of fame or vainglory does not work so much on there as a just ...
— Utopia • Thomas More
... intellectual desire and comes in the subtle form of presumptuous trust. It forms a true climax in the testing of the ideal Man. The order given by Matthew is suggested by the apostle John who mentions "the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life." The order of Luke takes us back to the story of Eden and to the first human sin, which was due to a love for that which was "good for food" and "a delight to the eyes" and "to be desired to make one wise." As in Eden also, the ...
— The Gospel of Luke, An Exposition • Charles R. Erdman
... Lust and vainglory and pride? What is it now of my victory they want? What of you, Peace, the crucified? This is the height. Can they scan it? This is no space-festering planet. This is no rack of vain tears! Even a dream, can they cloud it and ...
— Perpetual Light • William Rose Benet
... the main army, Boquet was detached with two thousand men to take post at Loyal Hanna, fifty miles in advance. Here intelligence was received that the French garrison consisted of but eight hundred men, of whom three hundred were Indians. The vainglory of Boquet, without the consent or knowledge of his superior officer urged him to send forward a party of four hundred Highlanders and a company of Virginians, under Major James Grant to reconnoitre. Major Grant divided ...
— An Historical Account of the Settlements of Scotch Highlanders in America • J. P. MacLean
... it a piece of vainglory on your part alone, amounting to nothing, if, indeed, he observed it at all. No, no, Evelyn Erle! if you expect to carry out your views, you must aid me in executing mine. I shall keep your secret from my son on no other conditions. We ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield
... strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than themselves." Phil. 2:3. This should be the experience of your heart every day. When we are lowly, we see our own faults and imperfections and our brother's virtues; therefore we look upon him as better than ourselves. It ...
— How to Live a Holy Life • C. E. Orr
... the first camp and billeting organization of the enormous forces raised. But when all is said, did we not, in the language of a French observer "improvise the impossible"?—and have we not good reason to be proud?—not with any foolish vainglory, but with the sober and resolute pride of a great nation, conscious of its past, determined to correct its mistakes, and looking open-eyed ...
— The War on All Fronts: England's Effort - Letters to an American Friend • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... greatest impression on the playwrights of its time—may be described as a magniloquent account of the career of a world-conqueror whose resistless triumph over kingdoms and potentates, signalized by acts of monstrous insolence, provides excuse for outbursts of extravagant vainglory. Such a description is intended to indicate the traditional Marlowesque qualities: it is a very inadequate criticism of the play as a whole. This kind of loud, richly coloured drama leapt into instant popularity, and it was in direct imitation of it that Greene wrote the first ...
— The Growth of English Drama • Arnold Wynne
... to be hoped they line out of their prayer- books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only ...
— Bleak House • Charles Dickens
... while we were discussing, over the cheese and ale, the Chezzetcook and negro settlements, and exhibiting with no little vainglory a gorgeous bunch of wild flowers (half of which vanity my compagnon de voyage is accountable for), there was a young English-Irish gentleman, well built, well featured, well educated: by name—I shall ...
— Acadia - or, A Month with the Blue Noses • Frederic S. Cozzens
... quickly. His twinkling eyes sent out the keenest glance of suspicion, but the gay, affectionate, vaunting laugh, as Tyler Sudley turned around and clapped the boy a ringing blow on his slender shoulder, expressed only the plenitude of his simple vainglory. ...
— The Moonshiners At Hoho-Hebee Falls - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)
... vainglory of men, especially of Frenchmen, never cease? Will it be believed, that after the action of St. Cas—a mere affair of cutting off a rearguard, as you are aware—they were so unfeeling as to fire away I don't know how much powder at the Invalides at Paris, ...
— The Virginians • William Makepeace Thackeray
... assured that all this rout and destruction was effected by five hundred foot and fifty horse, and those mere mountaineers without science or discipline.* "It was intended," observes one historiographer, "as a lesson to their confidence and vainglory, overrating their own prowess and thinking that so chosen a band of chivalry had but to appear in the land of the enemy and conquer. It was to teach them that the race is not to the swift nor the battle to the strong, but that God ...
— Chronicle of the Conquest of Granada • Washington Irving
... former occupation, virulently accusing him of the manners of a pedagogue:—"A man may perceive an immoderate and eager desire of vainglory growing in hand, ever since he used to teach and correct children for these things, according to the opinion of some, in mores et naturam abeunt." He complains of "the school-hyperboles" which Camden exhausts on him, among ...
— Calamities and Quarrels of Authors • Isaac D'Israeli
... start before he would go." Official Records, vol. xix. pt. i. p. 422.] The men of the First Corps and its officers did their duty nobly on that as on many another field, and the only spot on the honor of the day is made by the personal unscrupulousness and vainglory of ...
— Military Reminiscences of the Civil War V1 • Jacob Dolson Cox
... bonae literae, may understand that we in our youth embraced the cultured literature of the Ancients, and that we acquired a correct knowledge of the two languages, Greek and Latin—not without many vigils—not for the purpose of vainglory or childish satisfaction, but because, long before, we premeditated adorning the temple of the Lord (which some have too much desecrated by their ignorance and barbarism) according to our strength, with help from foreign parts, so that also in noble minds the love of Holy Scripture may be kindled'. ...
— Erasmus and the Age of Reformation • Johan Huizinga
... has always been a common poison in the world. There is no village too small to contain someone who wants to be considered wiser or better than the rest. Those who have been bitten by pride usually stand upon the reputation for learning and wisdom. Vainglory is not nearly so bad in a private person or even in an official as it ...
— Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians • Martin Luther
... "Fellow Florentines," he said, "here is a straight challenge. It equals the big man with the little; it fills me to the giant's girth and inches. It saves him from shame if he wins, for it were little to his credit to kill a civilian. It denies me if I win the vainglory of overcoming a Titan. Is not ...
— The God of Love • Justin Huntly McCarthy
... moment propitious for capturing the "philanthropist." He exclaimed with an accent which smacked at the same time of the vainglory of the mountebank at fairs, and the humility of the mendicant on ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo
... your knees and pray. Pray to be delivered from blindness of heart, Anthony Lyveden. D'you hear? Blindness of heart. From pride, vainglory and hypocrisy. Not that you're hypocritical, but they go together, and it'll do no harm. And I shall make Valerie go, and—and I shall pray ...
— Anthony Lyveden • Dornford Yates
... devotion, their weakness and genius, their religion and their irreligion. Though he had seen Rome to familiarity, he was gratified. The sight filled a measure of pride which would have made him drunk with vainglory but for the thought, princely as the property was, it did not any longer belong to his countrymen; the worship in the Temple was by permission of strangers; the hill where David dwelt was a marbled cheat—an office in which the chosen of the Lord were wrung and wrung ...
— Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ • Lew Wallace
... independent aspirants, whom some capricious fortune has brought within their contact? Does one little star in the vault above shine less brightly or twinkle less gladly because myriads of others do likewise? After all, what vainglory need there be in accidents of birth or fortune. They are not virtually ours, they have been given to us, and rest upon a changing wind that, to-morrow, may waft them far out of our Reach ...
— The Doctor's Daughter • "Vera"
... they admit that slavery is an evil, they disclaim all participation in the introduction of it, and cast it all upon the shoulders of our old granddam Britain. But when probed to the quick upon it, they show at the bottom of their souls pride and vainglory in their condition of masterdom. They fancy themselves more generous and noble-hearted than the plain freemen who labor for subsistence. They look down upon the simplicity of a Yankee's manners, because he has no habits of overbearing like theirs and ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Restricted to Prose, Vol. IX (of X) - America - I • Various
... of need and adversity, but not in the time of prosperity—nay, that they flee. There is no need to flee just now, through fear lest our great prosperity make our hearts sail away in the wind of pride and vainglory; for there is no one who can glory now otherwise than in labours. But light seems to be failing us, dazzled as we are by our consolations and the hope we place in special revelations— things which do not let us know the truth rightly, though we act in good faith. But God, who is ...
— Letters of Catherine Benincasa • Catherine Benincasa
... an imaginary than an actual evil, and though a deep wound to pride, no offence to morality. Thus have I laid open to you my whole heart, confessed my perplexities, acknowledged my vainglory, and exposed with equal sincerity the sources of my doubts and the motives of my decision. But now, indeed, how to proceed I know not. The difficulties which are yet to encounter I fear to enumerate, and the petition ...
— Critical and Historical Essays, Volume III (of 3) • Thomas Babington Macaulay
... letters which he writ after his battles show awe rather than exultation; and he attributes the glory of these achievements, about which I have heard mere petty officers and men bragging with a pardonable vainglory, in nowise to his own bravery or skill, but to the superintending protection of heaven, which he ever seemed to think was our especial ally. And our army got to believe so, and the enemy learnt to think so too; for we never ...
— The History of Henry Esmond, Esq. • W. M. Thackeray
... determined to try to adjust the difficulty amicably, and with this purpose sent an ambassador to the Typees, proposing a peaceful alliance. The reply of the natives is an amusing example of the ignorant vainglory of savage tribes, unacquainted with the power of civilized peoples. The Typees saw no reason to desire the friendship of the Americans. They had always got along very well without it. They had no intention of sending hogs or fruit to sell to the Americans. If the Americans wanted supplies, let ...
— The Naval History of the United States - Volume 1 (of 2) • Willis J. Abbot
... dress, and her furniture, but choice in her simplicity, having the refinements and delicacies of luxury, but nothing of its ostentation nor its vanity; modest in her air, carriage, and manners, but with a touch of pride, and even a little vainglory. Nothing flattered her more than her intercourse with the great. At their houses she rarely saw them,—indeed she was not at her ease there,—but she knew how to attract them to her own by a coquetry subtly flattering; and ...
— The Women of the French Salons • Amelia Gere Mason
... were for long ignorant as to how to explain its theory, it lacked advocates for a considerable time; because it does not speak itself, but reveals itself and ends in action, and poetry ends in words, which in its vainglory ...
— Thoughts on Art and Life • Leonardo da Vinci
... Council (or prime minister); but the real head of the Government and Minister for Foreign Affairs was Alphonse de Lamartine. He was a Christian believer, a high-minded man, by birth an aristocrat, yet by sympathy a man of the masses. "He was full of sentimentalities of vainglory and of personal vanity; but no pilot ever guided a ship of state so skilfully and with such absolute self-devotion through an angry sea. For a brief while, just long enough to effect this purpose, he was the idol of the populace." ...
— France in the Nineteenth Century • Elizabeth Latimer
... of horse, now receiving their daily bread from the hands of their foes, can we suppose that our present prosperity is likely to endure for all time? You, young men, be sure that you lay aside your haughty looks and vainglory in your victory, and await with humility what the future may bring forth, ever considering what form of retribution Heaven may have in store for us to set off against our present good fortune." They say that Aemilius spoke long in this strain, and sent away his young officers with their pride and ...
— Plutarch's Lives, Volume I (of 4) • Plutarch
... Knox Church "come out" was one of the sights of the town and, decorously hidden behind a muslin curtain, a stranger might feast his eyes upon greatness unrebuked. It was said at one time that every silk hat in Coombe attended Knox Church, but this was vainglory, for it was afterwards proved that several repaired to St. Michael's and at least one to the Baptist tabernacle. With this explanation you will at once understand why the sidewalk was a few feet broader upon the church side of Oliver's Hill, and if this circumstance savours ...
— Up the Hill and Over • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... of moral ideas with a profound religious mysticism. It would have been strange indeed, growing up as he did in the whited sepulchre of Parisian salon life, if he had not accustomed himself to sacrifice a little of the soul of art for the sake of vainglory, and a little of its poetry and feeling to make display of those dazzling digital feats which he invented. But, be it said to his honor, he never played mountebank tricks in the presence of the masters whom he revered. It was when he approached the music of Beethoven that ...
— How to Listen to Music, 7th ed. - Hints and Suggestions to Untaught Lovers of the Art • Henry Edward Krehbiel
... not animate the Fructidoreans. France is of but little consequence to them; they are concerned only for their faction, for power, and for their own persons. La Revelliere, president of the Directory, through vainglory, "wanted to have his name go with the general peace;" but he is controlled by Barras, who needs war in order to fish in troubled waters,[51113] and especially by Reubell, a true Jacobin in temperament and intellect, "ignorant and vain, with the most vulgar ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine
... little less than gods. Those acts of violence which happen among us are not to be seen in their streets. They live together in one mind, very seemly; the things which beyond [153] everything else cause men to contend against each other, having no place upon them. Gold and silver, pleasure, vainglory, they have long since banished, as being unprofitable to the commonwealth; and their life is an unbroken calm, in liberty, equality, ...
— Marius the Epicurean, Volume Two • Walter Horatio Pater
... met the challenge, oblivious of all counsels of pride, culture, vainglory and hypocrisy. This was his mate, a sweeter lady than ...
— The Vagrant Duke • George Gibbs
... masters of nature and all her secrets. If you and I could make the whole city worship and obey us, by casting ourselves off this cathedral unhurt, would not that make us proud enough? So proud, I fear, that we should end in committing some great folly, or great crime in our conceit and vainglory. ...
— All Saints' Day and Other Sermons • Charles Kingsley
... the Church. Neverthelesse, during the Apostles time, there were other Pastors that observed it not; As Diotrephes (3 John 9. &c.) who cast out of the Church, such as S. John himself thought fit to be received into it, out of a pride he took in Praeeminence; so early it was, that Vainglory, and Ambition had found entrance ...
— Leviathan • Thomas Hobbes
... but weak and wayward men, Distraught alike with hatred and vainglory; Prone to despise the Soul that breathes within— High visioned hordes that lie and steal and kill, Sinning the sin each separate heart disclaims, Clambering upon our riven, writhing selves, Besieging Heaven by trampling men to Hell! We be blood-guilty! Lo, ...
— Darkwater - Voices From Within The Veil • W. E. B. Du Bois
... stint of anything. I have no taste for tattle, nor do I allow tattling in my presence; I pry not into my neighbours' lives, nor have I lynx-eyes for what others do. I hear mass every day; I share my substance with the poor, making no display of good works, lest I let hypocrisy and vainglory, those enemies that subtly take possession of the most watchful heart, find an entrance into mine. I strive to make peace between those whom I know to be at variance; I am the devoted servant of Our Lady, and my trust is ever in the ...
— Don Quixote • Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
... you and receive answers to my letters; and besides, it is plain that my sister could not find any one else to trust. It hurts me cruelly to think that I shall be so near you to-day, and yet that you will not be present at this banquet in my honor. I owe my little triumph to the vainglory of Angouleme; in a few days it will be quite forgotten, and you alone would have taken a real pleasure in it. But, after all, in a little while you will pardon everything to one who counts it more than all the triumphs in the world to be ...
— Lost Illusions • Honore De Balzac
... show no state or vainglory. This only is carefully observed, that with the corpses of their signal men certain woods be burned. Upon the funeral pile they accumulate neither apparel nor perfumes. Into the fire, are always thrown the arms of the dead, and sometimes his horse. With sods of earth only the sepulchre ...
— Tacitus on Germany • Tacitus
... did my son, thy chief, learn to boast of bravery? They tell me he inscribed the offerings to the gods with his name as the victor of Plataea—the battle won not by one man but assembled Greece. The inscription that dishonours him by its vainglory will be erased. To be brave is nought. Barbarians may be brave. But to dedicate bravery to his native land becomes a Spartan. He who is everything against a foe should count himself as nothing in the service of ...
— Pausanias, the Spartan - The Haunted and the Haunters, An Unfinished Historical Romance • Lord Lytton
... Philip's suggestion, orders were now given that the heretics should be executed at midnight in their dungeons, by binding their heads between their knees, and then slowly suffocating them in tubs of water. Secret drowning was substituted for public burning, in order that the heretic's crown of vainglory, which was thought to console him in his agony, might never ...
— The Rise of the Dutch Republic, 1555-1566 • John Lothrop Motley
... gasp when you see so much literature gathered together in one prison-house, but they gasp themselves at the thought that there are persons, chiefly clergymen, who, having finished one book, coolly begin another. Nevertheless it was not all vainglory that made David buy this library: it was rather a mighty respect for education, as something that he has missed. This same feeling makes him take in the Contemporary Review and stand up to it like a man. Alick, who also has a respect for education, tries ...
— What Every Woman Knows • James M. Barrie
... Abbot,' he writes, 'is a solemn, great office, being no less than that of spiritual father to a family of men consecrate (as it is written, Abba, father); yet not on that account should vainglory puff the cheeks of a pious man. God knows that I am no boaster. He, therefore, will not misjudge me, as certain others have done, when I record in this place (for positive cause and reason good) the exorbitant honours I received on the day of my lord Saint ...
— The Life and Death of Richard Yea-and-Nay • Maurice Hewlett
... enough, again I cannot forgive myself, but she seemed satisfied with what I did, and she talked on about him, not too loquaciously, but lovingly and lovably as a mother should, and proudly as the mother of such a boy should, though without vainglory; I have forgotten to say that she had a certain distinction of face, and was appropriately dressed in black. By this time we felt that a head-stall for such a donkey as I was going to buy was not enough to get of such people, and I added ...
— Familiar Spanish Travels • W. D. Howells
... liu'd thus long (let me speake my selfe, Since Vertue findes no friends) a Wife, a true one? A Woman (I dare say without Vainglory) Neuer yet branded with Suspition? Haue I, with all my full Affections Still met the King? Lou'd him next Heau'n? Obey'd him? Bin (out of fondnesse) superstitious to him? Almost forgot my Prayres to content him? And am I thus rewarded? 'Tis not well Lords. Bring me a constant woman to her Husband, ...
— The First Folio [35 Plays] • William Shakespeare
... out'; and so there is; but it lies as coldly in him as fire in a flint, which will not show without knocking. The man's undone for ever; for if Hector break not his neck i' th' combat, he'll break't himself in vainglory. He knows not me. I said 'Good morrow, Ajax'; and he replies 'Thanks, Agamemnon.' What think you of this man that takes me for the general? He's grown a very land fish, languageless, a monster. A plague of opinion! A man may wear it on ...
— The History of Troilus and Cressida • William Shakespeare [Craig edition]
... blood; a gift which to-day only their own kindred and race can bring to the masses, but which once saintly souls brought to their favored children in the crusade of the sixties, that finest thing in American history, and one of the few things untainted by sordid greed and cheap vainglory. The teachers in these institutions came not to keep the Negroes in their place, but to raise them out of their places where the filth of slavery had wallowed them. The colleges they founded were social settlements; ...
— The Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 1995, Memorial Issue • Various
... great deal about his—his actual money—though there was something about blades of grass that I didn't comprehend. I think he meant something about his energy—but perhaps not. No, his bragging usually seemed to be not so much a personal vainglory as about his family and the ...
— The Turmoil - A Novel • Booth Tarkington
... twined about each other's waists. They wore white muslin dresses, and straw hats with wide and jaunty brims, and the loose ends of gay ribbons fluttered about them. These young ladies, fresh from school, and no doubt full of vainglory, greeted the bridal procession with a little explosion of giggles, and when Puss Pringle pushed back her gingham sun-bonnet and innocently gazed upon them, they turned up their noses, sniffed the air ...
— Mingo - And Other Sketches in Black and White • Joel Chandler Harris
... office from the commission of all sin; and furthermore he suppliantly besought that the church over which he presided might not be called by his name, as was in many places the custom among the Irish people. And this did he to preserve his lowliness, and to avoid vainglory, which is the fretting moth of all virtues. Then Saint Patrick, understanding the worthiness of Sennachus and the simplicity of his heart, promised unto him all his desire; and blessing him and his flock, ...
— The Most Ancient Lives of Saint Patrick - Including the Life by Jocelin, Hitherto Unpublished in America, and His Extant Writings • Various
... said aloud; "but he is right: his wife was greater than either of us. If he'd listened to her and not his own vainglory, both could be alive ...
— The Red Redmaynes • Eden Phillpotts
... Further, a good action may happen to be ordained to an evil end, as when a man gives an alms from vainglory; and conversely, an evil action may happen to be ordained to a good end, as a theft committed in order to give something to the poor. Therefore an action is not good ...
— Summa Theologica, Part I-II (Pars Prima Secundae) - From the Complete American Edition • Saint Thomas Aquinas
... see you know him now. You know that he is cold, callous, that he is a bad man, that ambition and vainglory are his only guides. And you always loved him better than me. When we lived together, all three of us, you set him up as my pattern to copy. His staid demeanour and grave speech impressed you; you thought he possessed all the virtues. And me, me you always blamed, you gave me all the ...
— The Gods are Athirst • Anatole France
... forgive when there is magnanimity, vainglory and probably folly in forgiveness, but will not overlook the most trivial affront when there is every reason for so doing. They have brain, but not ballast, and their whole life is usually a lopsided effort ...
— Epilepsy, Hysteria, and Neurasthenia • Isaac G. Briggs
... animals and plants of every kind, and also prove that by influx from within itself nature causes men to live, to think analytically and to understand wisely? Self-love excels in ability to prove whatever it desires because a certain glamour of varicolored light overlays it. This glamour is the vainglory of that love in being wise and thus also ...
— Angelic Wisdom about Divine Providence • Emanuel Swedenborg |
