Quotes About Envy

What is envy? It is nothing but passive jealousy. Maybe jealousy is too strong a phenomenon; envy is a little passive. The difference may be of degrees, but it is not of quality, it is only of quantity. Envy can become jealousy at any moment; envy is just jealousy in progress. Mind has to drop all envies and jealousies.

Most of us can't help but live as though we've got two lives to live, one is the mockup, the other the finished version, and then there are all those versions in between. But there's only one, and before you know it, your heart is worn out, and, as for your body, there comes a point when no one looks at it, much less wants to come near it. Right now there's sorrow. I don't envy the pain. But I envy you the pain. (p. 225)

Greatness inspires envy, envy engenders spite, spite spawns lies.

The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment may be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.

Beggars do not envy millionaires, though of course they will envy other beggars who are more successful.

Greed, envy, sloth, pride and gluttony: these are not vices anymore. No, these are marketing tools. Lust is our way of life. Envy is just a nudge towards another sale. Even in our relationships we consume each other, each of us looking for what we can get out of the other. Our appetites are often satisfied at the expense of those around us. In a dog-eat-dog world we lose part of our humanity.

But some natives--most natives in the world--cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go--so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they enjoy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.

If you envy me whatever modicom of success that I enjoy, you must also envy me my time, my labour, my finance, my anxiety, my frustration and my determination. Jose Sulaiman is the greatest boxing man that I have ever met. I think he is a knight in shining armour for the boxer, but I always insulate myself with the rules.

At moments like this I envy those who have found a safe haven in which to bestow their hearts; or perhaps I envy them for having a heart to bestow. I often feel that I myself am without one, and possess in its stead merely a heart shaped stone.

Believe all the good you can of everyone. Do not measure others by yourself. If they have advantages which you have not, let your liberality keep pace with their good fortune. Envy no one, and you need envy no one.

I envy neither the heart nor the head of any legislator who has been born to an inheritance of privileges, who has behind him agesof education, dominion, civilization, and Christianity, if he stands opposed to the passage of a national education bill, whose purpose is to secure education to the children of those who were born under the shadow of institutions which made it a crime to read.

I feel what they feel: man-hating, that volatile admixture of pity, contempt, disgust, envy, alienation, fear, and rage at men. It is hatred not only for the anonymous man who makes sucking noises on the street, not only for the rapist or the judge who acquits him, but for what the Greeks called philo-aphilos, 'hate in love,' for the men women share their lives with-husbands, lovers, friends, fathers, brothers, sons, coworkers.

In a way, I envy the freedom artists have. Artists can push themselves beyond their limits, in pursuit of their ideas and their vision, even if they are inhabited by demons that can also play tricks on them.

Virtually all of life's ills boil down to mindlessness. If you can understand someone else's perspective, then there's no reason to be angry at them, envy them, steal from them.

Who delivered up Jesus to die? Not Judas, for money; not Pilate, for fear; not the Jews, for envy; - but the father, for love!

There mark what ills the scholar's life assail, toil, envy, want, and patron.

It is certain that many intellectuals envy the higher income of prosperous businessmen and that these feelings drive them toward socialism. They believe that the authorities of a socialist commonwealth would pay them higher salaries than those that they earn under capitalism.

When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity... you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others

I envy people who write easily. I enjoy the process, but it's not easeful for me.

I'm always nervous doing auditions - to be honest, I hate it. I always envy the actors who are so cool and cold-blooded when they go in for an audition, especially if it's for a part that you would really love to play.

To help us bring benefit to others through our words and actions, it is useful to cultivate an attitude of sympathetic joy in others’ achievements and good fortune. This attitude is a powerful antidote against envy, which is not only a source of unnecessary suffering on the individual level but also an obstacle to our ability to reach out and engage with others.

The Bible and several other self help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that we do, that is sinful... or fun for that matter.

Envy is a surefire party killer.

I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt.

On the one hand, people think they own kids; they feel that they have the right to tell the kids what to do. On the other hand, people envy kids. We'd like to be kids our whole lives. Kids get to do what they do. They live on their instincts.

Envy may justly be called "the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity;" it is the most acid fruit that grows on the stock of sin, a fluid so subtle that nothing but the fire of divine love can purge it from the soul.

Do not be critics, you people, I beg you. I was a critic and I wish I could take it all back because it came from a smelly and ignorant place in me, and spoke with a voice that was all rage and envy. Do not dismiss a book until you have written one, and do not dismiss a movie until you have made one, and do not dismiss a person until you have met them. It is a f@*$%load of work to be open-minded and generous and understanding and forgiving and accepting, but Christ, that is what matters. What matters is saying yes.

Closeness can lead to emotions other than love. It's the ones who have been too intimate with you, lived in too close quarters, seen too much of your pain or envy or, perhaps more than anything, your shame, who, at the crucial moment, can be too easy to cut out, to exile, to expel, to kill off.

ENVY, n. Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.

The idea of caring is that someone is making money faster [than you are] is one of the deadly sins. Envy is a really stupid sin because it’s the only one you could never possibly have any fun at. There’s a lot of pain and no fun. Why would you want to get on that trolley?

I often envy a filmmaker or a playwright or an author where people are like, "Yeah, I sat down every night and read your book and it was beautiful." Or, "Yeah, I went to the movies and all I did was watch the movie because that's all you could do at the movies." Where with music, it's like, "Ugh, I love your music. I listen to it while I'm jogging thinking about how I hate my body." But it is also the privilege of being a musician is you can have your music in this documented form and play it live and that's, I think, what draws me to it the most.

As an introvert, you can be your own best friend or your worst enemy. The good news is we generally like our own company, a quality that extroverts often envy. We find comfort in solitude and know how to soothe ourselves. Even our willingness to look at ourselves critically is often helpful.But, we can go too far. We can hoard responsibility and overlook the role others play. We can kick ourselves when we're down. How many times have you felt lousy about something, only to get mad at yourself for feeling lousy?

Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?

Envy not success, nor pity failure, for you know not what is success or failure in the soul's reckoning.

I don't envy Netanyahu's situation, because I think he is in hot water. Obviously, this man has a totally different sense of personal morality than some of our previous political leaders. What would I personally like to see? I would like to see this government go straight to hell. And I would have liked to have seen the previous government go straight to hell.

Whatever worldly thing we may covet-zealously striving to obtain and then retain-never seems to bring an end to our desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment. . . . Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When "all we've ever wanted" is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough!

If the internal griefs of every man could be read, written on his forehead, how many who now excite envy would appear to be the objects of pity?

I envy no quality of the mind or intellect in others; not genius, power, wit, nor fancy; but, if I could choose what would be most delightful, and, I believe, most useful to me, I should prefer a firm religious belief to every other blessing.

School is indeed a training for later life not because it teaches the 3 Rs (more or less), but because it instills the essential cultural nightmare fear of failure, envy of success, and absurdity.

Politicians learned hundreds of years ago that people who had little material wealth were incredibly jealous of those who had more than they did. This deep-seated envy was ripe for exploitation - and the exploitation has been running rampant for generations.

The hate which we all bear with the most Christian patience is the hate of those who envy us.

One hundred years ago, visionary political leaders from the Progressive Era established a system of national forests and parks in our country that are the envy of the world and today are the treasure of an entire nation. Why not a similar, global vision for our generation?

Do not neglect to bring your revolver, Russell. It may be needed, and it does us no good in your drawer with that disgusting cheese." "My lovely Stilton; it's almost ripe, too. I do hope Mr. Thomas enjoys it." "Any riper and it will eat through the woodwork and drop into the room below." "You envy me my educated tastes." "That I will not honour with a response. Get out the door, Russell.

Sexual activity, for women, has a history of vulnerability, in a way it simply does not have for men. The mother has to teach thishidden text to her daughter. The mother's warnings, her attempts to halt sexual development in her daughter, are not so much signs of disapproval or envy, but of fear.

There is no rest for the person who has envy, and there is no love for the person who has bad manners.

A human doesn't have a heart like mine. The human heart is a line, whereas my own is a circle, and I have the endless ability to be in the right place at the right time. The consequence of this is that I'm always finding humans at their best and worst. I see their ugly and their beauty, and I wonder how the same thing can be both. Still, they have one thing I envy. Humans, if nothing else, have the good sense to die.

Christianity provided man for the first time with supernatural beings who, he knew, could neither envy nor ridicule him.

The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.