A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

He wanted to be the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral.

I'll destroy you. I am the master of disaster.

In my opinion, better far it be To destroy vanity within my life Than to destroy my life in vanity.

Fools take to themselves the respect that is given to their office.

There is no such flatterer as is a man's self.

None of us are so much praised or censured as we think.

The anxiety we have for the figure we cut, for our personage, is constantly cropping out. We are showing off and are often more concerned with making a display than with living. Whoever feels observed observes himself.

Until the Donkey tried to clear The Fence, he thought himself a Deer.

Without vanity a writer's work is tepid, and he must accept his vanity as part of his stock in trade and live with it as one of the hazards of his profession.