By vanity - literally, “by a breath,” i. e., by a windfall, or sudden stroke of fortune, not by honest labor. The general meaning seems to be that the mere possession of riches is as nothing; they come and go, but the power to gain by skill of hand (“labor”) is everything.
Related Commentaries of Proverbs 13:11
Proverbs 13:11
11 Wealth gotten by vanity shall be diminished: but he that gathereth by labourc shall increase.