Envy Quotes

Whenever she saw in others an advantage, however trivial, which she herself lacked, she would persuade herself that it was no advantage at all, but a drawback, and would pity so as not to have to envy them.

~ Marcel Proust

This bastard was in a self-help program? For what? Square-jawed, cleft-chin sufferers? Handsome Bastards Anonymous?

~ Susan Juby

You can't ever be your heroes, but you can love their gifts.

~ John Piper

My envy's not dangerous, it wouldn't hurt a mouse.

~ Henry James

Often change yourself, when you see that people envy you : they will start to change themselves too, but at that time YOU will not envy them...

~ Alen Sargsyan

I once had a complete life - in love, in envy, in pains. Now, I was living a death. A peaceful, gorgeous, liberating death.

~ Prashant Chopra

What kind of plan B? Hale asked. He was almost holding his breath when a voice answered, My kind. Macey tried to read the look on his face then, but it was gone in a flash. It had been a simple moment of peace and joy and pure happiness. That voice made Hale happy. It kept him calm. It was his backup and his conscience. Macey couldn't help herself, she envied him.

~ Ally Carter

Rivalry discovers that courtesy overlooks.

~ Baltasar Gracián

You sometimes heard about the marginally talented wives of powerful men publishing children's books or designing handbags or, most commonly, becoming photographers. There might even be a show of the wife's work in a well-known but slightly off gallery. Everyone would come see it, and they would treat the wife with unctuous respect. Her photographs of celebrities without makeup, and seascapes, and street people, would be enormous, as though size and great equipment could make up for whatever else was missing.

~ Meg Wolitzer

Life is funny sometimes. Of course it isn’t as funny as smashing your brand new Mustang convertible into your house and having your life flash before your eyes. Sitting here in my car in the middle of my den, I can't help but think that things could have worked out differently - that could have been happier - that could have lived the life that was meant for me. That was, if I didn't have to keep up with the Greenbergs.

~ Phil Wohl

Marvel hates her because she's pretty and doesn't have any kids to worry about.

~ Janet Fitch

If an American worker saw you driving a Cadillac, he worked to. earn enough to buy one for himself; the English worker, on the other hand, sought to deprive you of yours.

~ Elizabeth Powers

I was just thinking... how it is not and it will never be okay to cause pain in someone's life just because of the fact that you are envious of them! Is someone taller than you? Richer than you? More beautiful? That doesn't make it okay to hurt those people, for all you know, they bear deep wounds and carry heavy burdens and their heartache is far greater than anything you could ever bear! People try to hurt people that they're envious of, without knowing that they are adding to what is already painful. And because someone has more than you or has what it is that you want, doesn't mean that they owe you anything! It's not their fault! Be careful, you may just be wounding an angel soul, and a wound inflicted upon an angel soul, will always, always come back to haunt- YOU.

~ C. Joybell C.

No bird in a cage has ever come to know what the mountain winds feel like, by staring at the free flying birds, wishing that they would fall from the sky!

~ C. Joybell C.

There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.

~ Richard Brinsley Sheridan

The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity – it’s envy.

~ Yann Martel

Envy and resentment are terribly corrosive passions. To suffer at the sight or even the thought of others' enjoyment of life makes one a committed enemy of human happiness. Such people end up being practically a curse upon the human race. They vandalize life, exerting themselves not in the pursuit of gain or pleasure, but to hinder others' enjoyment.

~ Robert Sheaffer

Is it not strange that the more someone has, the less he feels he has? Envy can never be sated.

~ Jeff Wheeler

M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'.

~ Céleste Albaret

The ultimate goal of the arriviste’s aspirations is not to acquire a thing of value, but to be more highly esteemed than others. He merely uses the “thing” as an indifferent occasion for overcoming the oppressive feeling of inferiority which results from his constant comparisons.

~ Max Scheler

I don't envy or much respect people who are completely politicised.

~ Christopher Hitchens

Nonetheless, do I have respect for people who believe in the hereafter? Of course I do. I might add, perhaps even a touch of envy too, because of the solace.

~ Studs Terkel

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

~ Josh Billings

Envy is human nature.

~ Monica Bellucci

Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks.

~ Thomas Browne

I envy the happiness of others... I envy the sense of belonging... I seem always to be remaking myself.

~ Richard Eyre

Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.

~ William Shenstone

I have never been given to envy - save for the envy I feel toward those people who have the ability to make a marriage work and endure happily.

~ J. Paul Getty

The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods.

~ Elbert Hubbard

Envy and jealousy are incurable diseases.

~ Robert Kraft

When you do well, everybody's after you, and sometimes the motives are legitimate, and sometimes it's envy and jealousy.

~ Robert Kraft

The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous.

~ Rabindranath Tagore

If I am fool, it is, at least, a doubting one; and I envy no one the certainty of his self-approved wisdom.

~ Lord Byron

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

~ Malcolm X

Pride, envy, avarice - these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men.

~ Dante Alighieri

When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad.

~ Tacitus