Vanity
Vanity (Latin vanitas ) is the exaggerated concern for one's own physical beauty or spiritual perfection, one's own body, the appearance and attractiveness or the well-formedness of one's character.
Particulars
The boundaries between the natural enjoyment of their body and the exaggerated concern for one's own attractiveness are fluent (see values change ). What one person perceives as still attached, is immeasurably for the other already. See also Narcissus.
The vanity as a major sin
In the Christian, especially Catholic theology vanity is counted among the major sins. The vanity distracts the mind of man from God and toward himself, his body and his appearance.
Other word meaning
→ Main article: Vanitas
Vanity also has the different, original, but now obsolete meaning: (. Cf. Engl idle or German frustrate some) mortality, nothingness, emptiness and futility. In particular, in the baroque life sense of futility was ( see, eg, the Baroque sonnet It's all vain ) any earthly pursuit of one of the central motifs of the literature.
In a competitive environment, the term is also vanity pejorative use for assigning a more or less pronounced form of classical narcissism to competitors. The sharpness of the semantics can be seen in the individual case to choice of words, tone of voice and body language. Reported a person of one's own vanity, however, this should be construed by others as self-critical.
Quotes
- François de La Rochefoucauld once remarked: " Humility is the worst form of vanity."
- Friedrich Nietzsche: " The vanity is the fear of appearing original, thus a lack of pride, but not necessarily a lack of originality. ", From: Dawn, Aph. 365
- Friedrich Nietzsche: "You must therefore admit that the eitelen People do not like both others than himself, and that they go so far as to neglect their advantage; for it is them often because their fellow unfavorable, hostile, envious, therefore, vote against harmful, only to the enjoyment of himself, to have the self- enjoyment, "from: . Human, All Too Human, Aph. 89