Envy is a feeling of discontent or covetousness with regard to someone ‘s advantages, possessions, or traits. Inspirational envy quotes will challenge the way you think, change the way you live and transform your whole life.
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Famous Envy Quotes
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. – Franois de la Rochefoucauld
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. – Josh Billings
Jealousy is the dragon in paradise; the hell of heaven; and the most bitter of the emotions because associated with the sweetest. – R. Orage
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause. – Baltasar Gracin
Envy is pain at the good fortune of others. – Aristotle
Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. – George Eliot
It is never wise to seek or wish for another’s misfortune. If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang. – Charley Reese
The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build. – Margaret Thatcher
Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it. – Honore de Balzac
Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own. – Harold Coffin
Envy is thin because it bites but never eats. – Spanish Proverb
Envy is ignorance. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another’s prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death. – Charles Caleb Colton
Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole. – Honoré de Balzac
Envy is the coward side of Hate, and all her ways are bleak and desolate. – Henry Abbey
Never love unless you can bear with all the faults of man: Men will sometimes jealous be, Though but little cause they see. – Thomas Campion, ‘Never Love Unless’
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. – Buddha
Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse: envy alone wants both. – Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy
Trifles light as air, are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ. – William Shakespeare, Othello
Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space, feels itself excluded. – William Hazlitt
The jealous bring down the curse they fear upon their own heads. – Dorothy Dix
Envy is a gun with a faulty breech-lock which flares back and burns the gunner. – Austin O’Malley
Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. – François de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims
Whoever envies another confesses his superiority. – Samuel Johnson, The Rambler
Envy is a symptom of lack of appreciation of our own uniqueness and self worth. Each of us has something to give that no one else has. – Elizabeth O’Connor
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered. – Aeschylus
Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks. – Ovid
Take heed you harbour not that vice call’d Envy, lest another’s happiness be your torment, and God’s blessing become your curse. – Wellins Calcott
A show of envy is an insult to oneself. – Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko
The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy. – François de la Rochefoucauld
Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it. – William Shenstone
Our envy of others devours us most of all. – Alexander Solzhenitsyn
A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones. – Proverbs 14:30
Rust consumes iron and envy consumes itself. – Danish Proverb
Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts. – Jean Vanier
Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not. – Johann Von Goethe
Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good-fortune. – William Hazlitt
Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay. – Ralph Waldo Emerson
Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes. – William Shakespeare
Nothing sharpens sight like envy. – Thomas Fuller
Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred. – François de la Rochefoucauld
It is not greed that drives the world, but envy. – Warren Buffett
Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise. – John Gay
The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor. – Socrates
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change. – Gretchen Rubin
Envy shoots at others and wounds itself. – English Proverb
Keep yourselves far from envy; it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood. – Muhammad
Envy feeds on the living, after death it rests, then the honor of a man protects him. – Ovid
Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man’s self; and where there is no comparison, no envy. – Francis Bacon
Envy shoots at others and wounds itself. – English Proverb
Envy is like a fly that passes all the body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores. – Arthur Chapman
Jealousy—Tormenting yourself, for fear you should be tormented by another. – Paul Chatfield
Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run. – George Bernard Shaw
All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us. – Samuel Johnson
In jealousy there is more self-love than love. – François de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665
No one can have all he wants, but a man can refrain from wanting what he has not, and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand. – Seneca
Envy is a waste of time. – Author Unknown
For one man who sincerely pities our misfortunes, there are a thousand who sincerely hate our success. – Charles Caleb Colton
The envious speak from the heart about morality; they are consumed by hunger and begrudging. They tolerate, when no one else listens; and with the spur of spite, they applaud another’s prosperity. – Charles Aldridge
It is not love that is blind, but jealousy. – Lawrence Durrell, Justine, 1957
Great power which incites great envy, hurls some men to destruction; they are drowned in a long splendid stream of honors. – Juvenal
He that is not jealous is not in love. – Augustine
Whenever a friend succeeds, a little something in me dies. – Gore Vidal
The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves. – William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693
There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of ones fellow man. – Groucho Marx
Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied. – Mark Twain
Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks. – Thomas Browne
Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. – Elizabeth Bowen
Covetousness, which is idolatry. – The Bible
Pure love allows no room for jealousy. – James Lendall Basford
For most of us, envy is the basis of our actions; remove envy and we feel we are lost. All our effort is towards success, and in that there is envy; behind that envy there is fear. – Jiddu Krishnamurti
The laws would not prevent each man from living according to his inclination, unless individuals harmed each other; for envy creates the beginning of strife. – Democritus
It is better to be envied than pitied. – Herodotus
Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly. – Malcolm X
Envy is a declaration of inferiority. – Napoleon Bonaparte
Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening. – Maya Angelou
Envy has been, is, and shall be, the destruction of many. What is there, that Envy hath not defamed, or Malice left undefiled? Truly, no good thing. – Pythagoras
Jealousy is the great exaggerator. – Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, The Conspiracy of Fiesco, 1783
No man likes to be surpassed by those of this own level. – Titus Livy
The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring. – Victor Hugo
You don’t really see the person that you are envious of. You see a mirror that reflects what you find lacking in yourself. Paying attention to this can be very instructional. We often despise in others what we wish we could find in ourselves.
Jealousy is information. It tells you what you desire, what you admire, what you despise in yourself. You could learn from the person you envy if you weren’t blinded by resentment. Learning feels better than loathing. – The Stoic Emperor
Jealousy and love are sisters. – Russian Proverb
Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire. – Susan Cain
Base envy withers at another’s joy, And hates that excellence it cannot reach. – James Thomson
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something, sometime in your life. – Winston Churchill
As iron is eaten by rust, so are the envious consumed by envy. – Antisthenes
With that malignant envy which turns pale, And sickens, even if a friend prevail. – Charles Churchill
Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit. – de Puixieux
Nothing can allay the rage of biting envy. – Claudian (Claudianus)
Envy creates silent enemies. – Robert Greene
