We speak little if not egged on by vanity. РFran̤ois de la Rochefoucauld

Without this ridiculous vanity that takes the form of self-display, and is part of everything and everyone, we would see nothing, and nothing would exist. – Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin

Every author, however modest, keeps a most outrageous vanity chained like a madman in the padded cell of his breast. – Logan Pearsall Smith

There is nothing so agonizing to the fine skin of vanity as the application of a rough truth. – Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton