The vanities of life:pleasure, possession, position and power.

What's the matter with you, Penny? You're not as good looking as you generally believe you are.

I'm so pretty, it's hard for me to think of myself as intelligent.

Premature independence is the daughter of conceit.

Robert Ashford possessed one of the key character flaws necessary to a traitor. He thought he was smarter than everyone else. This allowed the overeducated career bureaucrat to sell out his own country, because he believed he knew what was best for his nation and its people.

Work was intended not to give a man a reason to live, but rather to give him a means to live.

She was heartily ashamed of her ignorance - a misplaced shame. Where people wish to attach, they should always be ignorant. To come with a well−informed mind is to come with an inability of administering to the vanity of others, which a sensible person would always wish to avoid. A woman especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can.

In their vanity men focus on what they wish to hear and miss the hidden meaning, the lurking threat.

I'm brilliant as well as skilled,' he said modestly. 'It's a great burden, all of that on top of my angelic good looks. But I try to soldier on as best I can.

Vanity can easily overtake wisdom. It usually overtakes common sense.