Envy Quotes

Do not mistake your objection to defeat for an objection to fighting, your objection to being a slave for an objection to slavery, your objection to not being as rich as your neighbor for an objection to poverty. The cowardly, the insubordinate, and the envious share your objections.

It is not enough that we should succeed, but our friends must fail as well.

But O, how bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's eyes.

My heart laments that virtue cannot liveOut of the teeth of emulation.

Vulgar people take huge delight in the faults and follies of great men.

The Number our envious Persons, confirmation our capability.

Pride is generally censured and decried, but mainly by those who have nothing to be proud of.

Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.

No one is completely unhappy at the failure of his best friend.

There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.

I can remember staring at the orphanage and feeling envy.

Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.

Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust. Envy of others comes from comparing what they have with what the envious person has, rather than the envious person realising they have more than what they could have and certainly more than some others and being grateful. It is really just an inability to get a correct perspective on their lives.

People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her.

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, Who is already sick and pale with grief That thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. . . .

The envier praises me unknowingly.

[There are dangers in] the disposition to hunt down rich men as if they were noxious beasts.

"Ah, Miss, hope is an excellent thing for such as has the spirits to bear it!" said Mrs Wickam, shaking her head. "My own spirits is not equal to it, but I don't owe it any grudge. I envys them that is so blest!"

The silence of the envious is too noisy.

Man will do many things to get himself loved, he will do all things to get himself envied.

Such men as he be never at heart's ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous.

No crime is so great as daring to excel.

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.

Nobody is glad in the gladness of another, and our system is one of war, of an injurious superiority. Every child of the Saxon race is educated to wish to be first. It is our system; and a man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies, and hatreds of his competitors.

Comparison is the death of joy.

Whoever feels pain in hearing a good character of his neighbor, will feel a pleasure in the reverse. And those who despair to rise in distinction by their virtues, are happy if others can be depressed to a level of themselves.

There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think wehave a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others.

We love much better those who endeavor to imitate us, than those who strive to equal us. For imitation is a sign of esteem, but competition of envy.

I never listen to the radio. If it's bad, I make fun of it, and if it's good, I get jealous that I didn't think of it.

Admiration for a quality or an art can be so strong that it deters us from striving to possess it.

Not praising the deserving prevents envy.

There is no vice of which a man can be guilty, no meanness, no shabbiness, no unkindness, which excites so much indignation among his contemporaries, friends and neighbours, as his success. This is the one unpardonable crime, which reason cannot defend, nor humility mitigate.

Envy is destroyed by true friendship, as coquetry by true love.

It stirs up envy, fame does. People feel fame gives them some kind of privilege to walk up to you and say anything to you - and it won't hurt your feelings - like it's happening to your clothing.

Everything he wanna have-I got.

Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.

Setting too good an Example is a Kind of slander seldom forgiven.

Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.

In the misfortunes of our best friends we always find something not altogether displeasing to us.

Some men have sighed over the abduction of their wives, but many more have sighed because no one wanted to abduct theirs.

I know the hatred and envy of your hearts. Ye are not great enough not to know of hatred and envy. Then be great enough not to be ashamed of them!

Sometimes we owe a friend to the lucky circumstance that we give him no cause for envy.

If the foot of the trees were not tied to earth, they would be pursuing me;For I have blossomed so much, I am the envy of the gardens.

The higher you ascend, the smaller you appear to the eye of envy. But most of all they hate those who fly.

A man comes to measure his greatness by the regrets, envies and hatreds of his competitors.

The look of success, when it is worn a certain way, would infuriate a jackass.

Walter Scott has no business to write novels, especially good ones. It is not fair. He has fame and profit enough as a poet, and should not be taking the bread out of the mouths of other people.

A real fox calls sour not only those grapes that he cannot reach but also those that he has reached and taken away from others.

Envy, like the worm, is always attracted to the fairest apple

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.

Whether we are in a pleasant or a painful state depends, finally, upon the kind of matter that pervades and engrosses our consciousness and what we compare it to - better and we envious and sad, worse and we feel grateful and happy.

The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Men are in general so tricky, so envious, and so cruel that when we find one who is only weak, we are too happy.

The sparrow is sorry for the peacock at the burden of its tail.

To a small man every greater is an exaggeration.

If an American is to amount to anything he must rely upon himself, and not upon the State; he must take pride in his own work, instead of sitting idle to envy the luck of others. He must face life with resolute courage, win victory if he can, and accept defeat if he must, without seeking to place on his fellow man a responsibility which is not theirs.

Women and egoistic artists entertain a feeling towards science that is something composed of envy and sentimentality.

Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred.