quotations about envy
Envy stalks on with sullen step; her face is pallid and her body emaciated; her eye never looks straight before her: her teeth are brown with rust; her breast overflows with gall, and from her tongue drips drops of poison; she never smiles except when the wretched weep; nor does she enjoy rest; ever kept moving by her sleepless cares, she sees with evil eye the success of men, and pines away as she beholds; she distresses others, and is herself distressed, and bears her own tormentor in her breast.
OVID
Metamorphoses
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
Thoughts Moral and Divine
How can we explain the perpetuity of envy, a vice which yields no return?
BALZAC
attributed, Day's Collacon
Heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery.
ANNA GODBERSON
The Luxe
As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.
CHRYSOSTOM
attributed, Day's Collacon
What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves.
JOHANN WOLFGANG VON GOETHE
The Maxims and Reflections of Goethe
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
Characteristics
An envious man waxeth lean with the fatness of his neighbors.
SOCRATES
attributed, Day's Collacon
ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
AMBROSE BIERCE
The Devil's Dictionary
A man that hath no virtue in himself, ever envieth virtue in others. For men's minds, will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one, will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope, to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand, by depressing another's fortune.
FRANCIS BACON
"Of Envy", Essays
Envy never enriched any man.
MONTGOMERY
attributed, Day's Collacon
Envy is a sickness growing from other men's happiness.
AURELIUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
In particular, it is absurd to hope to banish envy of other people's possessions or fortunes, if only because the spirit of envy can lead to emulation and ambition and have positive consequences.
CHRISTOPHER HITCHENS
God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything
To be envied is a nobler fate than to be pitied.
PINDARUS
attributed, Day's Collacon
Certainly, envy is no monopoly of the poor; it makes itself felt in all sections of society; it haunts the court, the library, the barrack-room, even the sanctuary; it is provoked in some unhappy souls by the near neighbourhood of any superior rank or excellence whatever.
HENRY PARRY LIDDON
Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford
If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang.
CHARLEY REESE
attributed, Quotable Quotes
There is no disappointment so numbing ... as someone no better than you achieving more.
JOSEPH HELLER
Good as Gold