vainness

O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men!

There but for the Grace of God…? | Mind on Fire 2006

“Oh dear!” exclaimed Ariadne, feeling the vainness of her wish to fly from the god.

Phineas Redux 2004

I have seen the strange madness of futility fall upon them when a little thing like a spinning dust-cloud, or the hollow crying of a bird, or the moan of the wind through bare branches brought to their gloomy minds the emptiness of life and the vainness of existence.

The Coming of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

I have seen the strange madness of futility fall upon them when a little thing like a spinning dust-cloud, or the hollow crying of a bird, or the moan of the wind through bare branches brought to their gloomy minds the emptiness of life and the vainness of existence.

The Coming Of Conan The Cimmerian Howard, Robert E. 2003

"If only we could have a cup of good hot coffee first, before we start," said Beth, and she smiled at the vainness of the thought.

The Furnace of Gold Philip Verrill Mighels

It was become such a world as did not seem worth a man's while to live in: a world of vainness, of hollowness, of meanness, of nothing but illusions.

Bardelys the Magnificent; being an account of the strange wooing pursued by the Sieur Marcel de Saint-Pol, marquis of Bardelys... Rafael Sabatini 1912

It was as though the love letter of Juliet had led her here to show her as in a glass darkly the vainness of love in the vainness of life.

The Ghost Girl 1907

Jochanan Hakka-dosh, the saintly prop of Israel, expounds from his deathbed a gospel of struggle and endurance in which a troubled echo of the great strain of Ben Ezra may no doubt be heard; but his career is, as a whole, a half-sad, half-humorous commentary on the vainness of striving to extend the iron frontiers of mortality.

Robert Browning Herford, C H 1905

Jochanan Hakka-dosh, the saintly prop of Israel, expounds from his deathbed a gospel of struggle and endurance in which a troubled echo of the great strain of Ben Ezra may no doubt be heard; but his career is, as a whole, a half-sad, half-humorous commentary on the vainness of striving to extend the iron frontiers of mortality.

Robert Browning 1892

His was a curious temperament, and this sentimentality, born of vainness and idle hours, by no means expressed it all.

Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch Henry Rider Haggard 1890