vainness

• This "in-vainness" is that about which Aristotle worried might be the danger if there were no order in things, including human things. —  Claremont.org
• Shakespeare says I hate ingratitude more in a man Than lying, vainness, babbling, drunkenness Or any taint of vice whose strong corruption Inhabits our frail blood Ingratitude for favours conferred is a most unnatural disposition, and is reproved even by the brute creation; for they manifest a strong instinctive feeling of gratitude towards their benefactors. —  The Hero of the Humber or the History of the Late Mr. John Ellerthorpe
• O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! —  The Book of Mormon
• For while they speak of the vainness and fickleness of oaths, as an objection against our project, they little consider that this fickleness and vainness is the common practice among all the people of this sublunary world; and that consequently, instead of being an objection against the project, is a concluding argument of the constancy and solidity of their sure gain by it; a never-failing argument, as he tells us, among the brethren of his cloth The ambitious citizens, who from being plunged deep in the wealthy whirlpool of the South-Sea, are in hopes of rising to such seats of fortune and dignity, as would best suit with their mounting and aspiring hopes, may imagine that this new fund, in the sister nation, may prove a rival to theirs; and, by drawing off a multitude of subscribers, will, if it makes a flood in Ireland, cause an ebb in England. —  The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, D.D. - Volume 07 Historical and Political Tracts-Irish
• 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...

Roget's II: The New Thesaurus