Education Quote by Julian Casablancas

Casablancas is diagnosing a familiar modern failure mode: the moment ego becomes louder than judgment, and the crowd mistakes volume for truth. Coming from a musician whose career has unfolded under the hot lamp of attention, the line reads less like armchair philosophy and more like a field report from inside the fame machine. “Vanity” here isn’t just narcissism; it’s the hunger to be seen, to be right, to win the room. That hunger doesn’t merely coexist with wisdom and common sense - it raids them.

The craft of the quote is in its escalation. Wisdom is already a high bar, a trait we like to imagine is rare and hard-earned. Saying vanity can “overtake” it suggests even the best of us are vulnerable. Then the pivot: “It usually overtakes common sense.” That’s the sting. Common sense is supposed to be the baseline, the thing that survives when ideals fail. Casablancas flips that comfort. He implies vanity is not an exceptional vice but a default setting, a daily corrupting force that knocks out even basic self-checks.

The subtext is cultural: in an era of self-branding, online performance, and constant scorekeeping, vanity isn’t a personal quirk - it’s an incentive structure. The line quietly indicts systems that reward spectacle over substance, where being admired can matter more than being accurate. It also carries an artist’s warning: when image becomes the project, the work - and the mind behind it - starts making decisions for applause, not for truth.