“Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain”
No Coward Soul Is Mine (1846)
Context: p>No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere:
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from Fear.O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life — that in me has rest,
As I — undying Life — have power in Thee!Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts: unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main...</p
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Emily Brontë 151
English novelist and poet 1818–1848Related quotes
“All is vanity and everybody's vain. Women are terribly vain. So are men — more so, if possible.”
"On Vanity and Vanities".
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow (1886)
“Against the years all men campaign in vain.”
Source: Soldiers Live (2000), Chapter 80, “The Taglian Territories: In Camp” (p. 621)
“Now a' is done that men can do,
And a' is done in vain.”
It Was A' for Our Rightfu' King, st. 2
Johnson's The Scots Musical Museum (1787-1796)
“For neither do men live nor die in vain.”
Book II, Ch. 8 (Ch. 25 in editions without Book divisions): Dead London
The War of the Worlds (1898)
Context: For so it had come about, as indeed I and many men might have foreseen had not terror and disaster blinded our minds. These germs of disease have taken toll of humanity since the beginning of things — taken toll of our prehuman ancestors since life began here. But by virtue of this natural selection of our kind we have developed resisting power; to no germs do we succumb without a struggle, and to many — those that cause putrefaction in dead matter, for instance — our living frames are altogether immune. But there are no bacteria in Mars, and directly these invaders arrived, directly they drank and fed, our microscopic allies began to work their overthrow. Already when I watched them they were irrevocably doomed, dying and rotting even as they went to and fro. It was inevitable. By the toll of a billion deaths man has bought his birthright of the earth, and it is his against all comers; it would still be his were the Martians ten times as mighty as they are. For neither do men live nor die in vain.
“Christ could be born a thousand times in Bethlehem – but all in vain until He is born in me.”
As quoted in Messenger Of The Heart: The Book Of Angelus Silesius, With Observations By Frederick Franck (2005)
“Not in vain oaths should prudent men believe,
But put their trust in actions.”
Olynthia, Fragment 4.
“Nothing is more vain than to seek to unite men by a philosophic minimum.”
Integral Humanism, (1936, Notre Dame Edition), p. 262.
“If I can stop one heart from breaking, I shall not live in vain.”
“The Cross on Golgotha
Thou lookest to in vain,
Unless within thine heart
It be set up again”
The Cherubinic Wanderer