Some have lavish garments, carry sharp swords, and feast on food and drink. They possess more than they can spend. This is called the vanity of robbers. It is certainly not the Way.
Ecclesiastes said that "all is vanity," Most modern preachers say the same, or show it By their examples of true Christianity: In short, all know, or very short may know it.
Pride is handsome, economical; pride eradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems as if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.
Good deeds shun the light as anxiously as evil deeds: the latter fear that disclosure will bring on pain (as punishment), while the former fear that disclosure will take away pleasure (that pure pleasure, that pleasure per se, which immediately ceases once the vanity's satisfaction is added).
It's the bane of both the news and sports businesses, both electronic and print - 'You heard it here first!' Who cares? That's nothing but a vanity play. If it's not right, it's garbage.
For some natures, changing their opinions is just as much a requirement of cleanliness as changing their clothes: for others, however, it is merely a requirement of vanity.
The majority of mankind is lazyminded, incurious, absorbed in vanities, and tepid in emotion, and is therefore incapable of either much doubt or much faith.
The alchemists spent years in their laboratories, observing the fire that purified the metals. They spent so much time close to the fire that gradually they gave up the vanities of the world. They discovered that the purification of the metals had led to a purification of themselves.