No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library.

Religion is a matter of the heart. No physical inconvenience can warrant abandonment of one’s own religion.

An example I often use to illustrate the reality of vanity, is this: look at the peacock; it’s beautiful if you look at it from the front. But if you look at it from behind, you discover the truth… Whoever gives in to such self-absorbed vanity has huge misery hiding inside them.

I can honestly say that I was never affected by the question of the success of an undertaking. If I felt it was the right thing to do, I was for it regardless of the possible outcome.

Vanity is the healthiest thing in life.

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

I have the conviction that excessive literary production is a social offence.

Would you believe in what you believe in if you were the only one who believed it?

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

I would rather die than do something which I know to be a sin, or to be against God’s will.

There was never yet fair woman but she made mouths in a glass.

It has always been my private conviction that any man who puts his intelligence up against a fish and loses had it coming.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism. So I distance myself, because I feel everything.

It is the cause, not the death, that makes the martyr.

There is an afterlife. I am convinced of this.

It’s the repetition of affirmations that leads to belief. And once that belief becomes a deep conviction, things begin to happen.

I spent three days a week for 10 years educating myself in the public library, and it’s better than college. People should educate themselves – you can get a complete education for no money. At the end of 10 years, I had read every book in the library and I’d written a thousand stories.

Vanity, showing off, is an attitude that reduces spirituality to a worldly thing, which is the worst sin that could be committed in the church.

It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder.

Conviction never so excellent, is worthless until it coverts itself into conduct.

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all others because you were born in it.

Faith keeps many doubts in her pay. If I could not doubt, I should not believe.

Intolerance betrays want of faith in one’s cause.

The sexiest people are thinkers. Nobody’s interested in somebody who’s just vain with a hole in their head, talking about the latest thing – there is no latest thing. It’s all rubbish.

The consciousness of the falsity of present pleasures, and the ignorance of the vanity of absent pleasures, cause inconstancy.

A ‚No‘ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‚Yes‘ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble.

It seems that it had been destined before that I should occupy myself so thoroughly with the vulture, for it comes to my mind as a very early memory, when I was still in the cradle, a vulture came down to me, he opened my mouth with his tail and struck me a few times with his tail against my lips.

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.

Conviction is worthless unless it is converted into conduct.

I will never say something I don’t agree with or believe in… even if the reward is massive!

We have always held to the hope, the belief, the conviction that there is a better life, a better world, beyond the horizon.

One of the most striking differences between a cat and a lie is that a cat has only nine lives.

Vanity is as ill at ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it cannot return.

There is a danger that threatens everyone in the church, all of us. The danger of worldliness. It leads us to vanity, arrogance and pride.

Vanity can apply to both insecurity and egotism.

The herd seek out the great, not for their sake but for their influence; and the great welcome them out of vanity or need.

I’m convinced that no one can amount to a damn in the arts if he becomes sweetly reasonable, seeing all sides of a picture, forgiving all sins.

I am a little too absorbed by science to be able to philosophise much; but the more I look into myself, the more I find myself possessed by the conviction that it is only the science of Christ running through all things, that is to say true mystical science, that really matters. I let myself get caught up in the game when I geologise.

The vanity of being known to be trusted with a secret is generally one of the chief motives to disclose it.

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

Vanity is great motivation, to be fair.

The English are predisposed to pride, the French to vanity.

Vanity can create a very cruel space for you if you don’t know how to manage it.

If there is one thing I fear less than everything else, it is, I believe, persecution for my opinions. There are a good many points about which I may be diffident, but when it comes to questions of Truth and intellectual independence, there is no holding me – I can envisage no finer end than to sacrifice oneself for a conviction.

We are not going to be satisfied by politicians saying ‚we support you‘ and then walking away. We won’t be satisfied until they meet our demands and act. That’s why simply taking a selfie or posting support on Twitter isn’t enough. That’s why we have to keep striking.

What convinces is conviction. Believe in the argument you’re advancing. If you don’t you’re as good as dead. The other person will sense that something isn’t there, and no chain of reasoning, no matter how logical or elegant or brilliant, will win your case for you.

No iron chain, or outward force of any kind, can ever compel the soul of a person to believe or to disbelieve.

On some positions, Cowardice asks the question, ‚Is it safe?‘ Expediency asks the question, ‚Is it politic?‘ And Vanity comes along and asks the question, ‚Is it popular?‘ But Conscience asks the question, ‚Is it right?‘

Follow your honest convictions and be strong.