What is the vanity of the vainest man compared with the vanity which the most modest possesses when, in the midst of nature and the world, he feels himself to be man!

One man adheres to an opinion because he prides himself on having come upon it by himself; another because he has learned it with effort, and is proud of having grasped it: thus both out of vanity.

Civilization owes to the Islamic world some of its most important tools and achievements...the Muslim genius has added much to the culture of all peoples.

The most vulnerable and yet most unconquerable of things is human vanity; nay, through being wounded its strength increases and can grow to giant proportions.

One will rarely err if extreme actions be ascribed to vanity, ordinary actions to habit, and mean actions to fear.

That little hypocrites and half-crazed people dare to imagine that on their account the laws of nature are constantly broken; such an enhancement of every kind of selfishness to infinity, to impudence, cannot be branded with sufficient contempt. And yet Christianity owes its triumph to this pitiable flattery of personal vanity.