Quotes About Envy

Human envy is certainly not one of the sources of discontent that a free society can eliminate. It is probably one of the essential conditions for the preservation of such a society that we do not countenance envy, not sanction its demands by camouflaging it as social justice, but treat it, in the words of John Stuart Mill, as 'the most anti-social and evil of all passions.'

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

You will be able to check envy if you rejoice with the man whom you envy whenever he rejoices, and grieve whenever he grieves.

If the angels were capable of envy, they would envy us for two things: one is the receiving of Holy Communion, and the other is suffering.

Oppressed cultures often envy those which are not, or oppressed individuals do, and sometimes those which - and who - are not envy those which - who - are.

Power is seldom innocent, and envy is the yokefellow of eminence.

The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch.

Yes, free markets tend to produce unequal incomes. We should not be ashamed of that. On the contrary, our system is the envy of the world and should be a source of pride.

I defer to all these other American poets who, for some reason, I both envy and admire.

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.

God's truth judges created things out of love, and Satan's truth judges them out of envy and hatred.

Emulation looks out for merits, that she may exalt herself by a victory; envy spies out blemishes that she may lower another by defeat.

Analyze yourself. All emotions are reflected in the body and mind. Envy and fear cause the face to pale, love makes it glow.

What I envy most about you Christians is your forgiveness; I have nobody to forgive me.

All the vices, Sancho, bring some kind of pleasure with them; but envy brings nothing but irritation, bitterness, and rage.

The source of sexual power is curiosity, passion. You are watching its little flame die of asphyxiation. Sex does not thrive on monotony. Without feeling, inventions, moods, no surprises in bed. Sex must be mixed with tears, laughter, words, promises, scenes, jealousy, envy, all of the spices of fear, foreign travel, new faces, novels, stories, dreams, fantasies, music, dancing, opium, wine.

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.

Yours is a race whose imagination is limited to its own small appetites. Greed, lust, envy - these are the motivating forces of humankind. What redeems you is that in every man and woman there is a seed that can grow to encompass love, joy and compassion. But this seed is never allowed to prosper in fertile ground. It struggles for life among the rocks of your human soul.

Do I envy Madonna’s body? Yes. Do I thank God that she has it? Yes! If you’re fifty-something and you look like Madonna, and you put a lifetime’s work in the way you look, then flash it to the world!

I honestly felt no envy or resentment, only astonishment at how much of a world there was out there and how much of it others already knew. The agenda for self-cultivation that had been set for my classmates by their teachers and parents was something I'd have to develop for myself.

It is better to arouse envy than pity.

I am itching to criticize some well-regarded writers' works, but I am not doing it because I am perfectly aware that my critique could easily be reduced to envy or just plain meanness.

Envy like fire always makes for the highest points.

The only man I envy is the man who has not yet been to Africa- for he has so much to look forward to.

I am a true laborer: I earn that I eat, get that I wear, owe no man hate, envy no man's happiness, glad of other men's good, content with my harm.

I haven't felt the excitement of listening to as well as creating music along with reading and writing for too many years now. I feel guilty beyond words about these things. For example, when we're backstage and the lights go out and the manic roar of the crowds begins, it doesn't affect me the way in which it did for Freddy [sic] Mercury who seemed to love, relish in the love and adoration from the crowd, which is something I totally admire and envy.

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.

For men can endure to hear others praised only so long as they can severally persuade themselves of their own ability to equal the actions recounted: when this point is passed, envy comes in and with it incredulity.

If we are the younger, we may envy the older. If we are the older, we may feel that the younger is always being indulged. In otherwords, no matter what position we hold in family order of birth, we can prove beyond a doubt that we're being gypped.

I envy people that have separate lives - that their job is one thing, their personal life is another. I've never been able to have that going on for me. I always try and keep some distance. I mean you can never give everything, so there is some distance, but it's pretty raw on some levels.

The only thing I envy in young people is their livers.

If our credit be so well built, so firm, that it is not easy to be shaken by calumny or insinuation, envy then commends us, and extols us beyond reason to those upon whom we depend, till they grow jealous, and so blow us up when they cannot throw us down.

A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea, Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal.

It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.

Envy is always referred to by its political alias, 'social justice.

I've never worked a day in my life. The joy of writing has propelled me from day to day and year to year. I want you to envy me, my joy. Get out of here tonight and say: 'Am I being joyful?' And if you've got a writer's block, you can cure it this evening by stopping whatever you're writing and doing something else. You picked the wrong subject.

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

All of us are prone to excuse our own mediocre performance. We blame our misfortunes, our disfigurements, our so-called handicaps. Victims of our own rationalization, we say silently to ourselves, 'I'm just too weak,' or 'I'm not cut out for better things.' Others soar beyond our meager accomplishments. Envy and discouragement take their toll. .

Here's a practice for dealing with envy...each time you find yourself envious of someone...ask yourself, "What is there that I am noticing in the other person that I want to find in myself?"...If it's money, is it the freedom? The cance to play that money buys? A sense of security? Whatever it is-more play, a sense of security, free time-you can work on getting more of it in your life, no matter what the circumstances.

Envy is the ulcer of the soul.

What first truly stirred my soul was not fear or pain, nor was it pleasure or games; it was the yearning for freedom. I had to gain freedom-but from what, from whom? Little by little, in the course of time, I mounted freedom's rough unaccommodating ascent. To gain freedom first of all from the Turk, that was the initial step; after that, later, this new struggle began: to gain freedom from the inner Turk-from ignorance, malice and envy, from fear and laziness, from dazzling false ideas; and finally from idols, all of them, even the most revered and beloved.

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

It was the hard work of our people, the freedom they enjoyed and their faith in God that built this country and made it the envy of the world. In all of our great cities and towns evidence of the faith of our people is found: houses of worship of every denomination are among the oldest structures. While never willing to bow to a tyrant, our forefathers were always willing to get to their knees before God. When catastrophe threatened, they turned to God for deliverance. When the harvest was bountiful the first thought was thanksgiving to God.

A lot of people live with no apparent means of support. I kind of envy the musicians up there. You're down here, busting your ass in Hollywood, and it's like Lily Tomlin's joke about the rat race - all you prove in the end is that you're a rat.

Envy ... is one form of a vice, partly moral, partly intellectual, which consists in seeing things never in themselves but only in their relations.

They will have time enough, in those endless aeons, to attempt all things, and to gather all knowledge... no Gods imagined by our minds have ever possessed the powers they will command... But for all that, they may envy us, basking in the bright afterglow of Creation; for we knew the Universe when it was young.

Basic anxiety can be roughly described as a feeling of being small, insignificant, helpless, deserted or endangered in a world that is out to abuse, cheat, humiliate, betray, envy... . And special in this is the child's feeling that the parents' love, their Christian charity, honesty, generosity ... may be only a pretense.

The best song lyrics seem to me so artful, so brilliant, so warm and humorous, with both passion and wit, that my admiration is matched only by my envy.