Envy Quotes

Most popular envy quotes

It's not greed that drives the world, but envy. - Warren Buffett quote.
It's not greed that drives the world, but envy.

greed

Envy, like flame, blackens that which is above it, and which it cannot reach. - Jean Antoine Petit-Senn quote.
Envy, like flame, blackens that which is above it, and which it cannot reach.
We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred nor envy; but, alas! What can we do when they never sleep! - Jean Antoine Petit-Senn quote.
We are told to walk noiselessly through the world, that we may waken neither hatred nor envy; but, alas! What can we do when they never sleep!

hate

There is nothing more counterproductive than envy. Someone in the world will always be better than you. Of all the sins, envy is easily the worst, because you can't even have any fun with it. It's a total net loss. - Charlie Munger quote.
There is nothing more counterproductive than envy. Someone in the world will always be better than you. Of all the sins, envy is easily the worst, because you can't even have any fun with it. It's a total net loss.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean. - Mark Twain quote.
Few of us can stand prosperity. Another man's, I mean.

human nature cynical

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.

malice

Spite is never lonely; envy always tags along.

malice

Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own.

gratitude

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. - Josh Billings quote.
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.

love

I'd never try to learn from someone I didn't envy at least a little. If I never envied, I'd never learn.

learning

Of the seven deadly sins, envy is the silliest, because if you have it, you don't feel better. You feel worse. I've had some good times with gluttony. We won't get into lust. - Warren Buffett quote.
Of the seven deadly sins, envy is the silliest, because if you have it, you don't feel better. You feel worse. I've had some good times with gluttony. We won't get into lust.

sin funny morals

In a consumer society there are inevitably two kinds of slaves: the prisoners of addiction and the prisoners of envy.
You're squandering
spleen on your brothers,
and wasting
good self-pity too,
if you think
that there's sun on the others
whenever it's raining on you.

adversity

A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit. - Hannah More quote.
A slowness to applaud betrays a cold temper or an envious spirit.
Hannah More Memories of the Life of Mrs. Hannah More

applause

Envy is a symptom of lack of appreciation of our own uniqueness and self worth.

appreciation

In imaginative envy, we idealize what we don't have. The act of yearning for something transmutes it from base metal into gold. - Diane Ackerman quote.
In imaginative envy, we idealize what we don't have. The act of yearning for something transmutes it from base metal into gold.
Few men have the strength of character to rejoice in a friend's success without a touch of envy. - Aeschylus quote.
Few men have the strength of character to rejoice in a friend's success without a touch of envy.
As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion. - Antisthenes quote.
As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion.
Antisthenes Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers
Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice. - Honoré de Balzac quote.
Emulation admires and strives to imitate great actions; envy is only moved to malice.
Congratulation, n. The civility of envy. - Ambrose Bierce quote.
Congratulation, n. The civility of envy.
Envy, n.  Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity. - Ambrose Bierce quote.
Envy, n.  Emulation adapted to the meanest capacity.
If one has a cow, it is always better not to be too familiar with those who have seven. - Phyllis Bottome quote.
If one has a cow, it is always better not to be too familiar with those who have seven.
He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. - Gautama Buddha quote.
He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

inner peace

As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man. - St. John Chrysostom quote.
As a moth gnaws a garment, so doth envy consume a man.
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. - C. C. Colton quote.
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.
People may show jealousy, but hide their envy.

jealousy

Hatred is a prolific vice; envy, a barren vice. - Marie von Eschenbach quote.
Hatred is a prolific vice; envy, a barren vice.

hate

Envy is ignorance. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Envy is ignorance.

ignorance

Envy is one of the scorpions of the mind, often having little to do with the objective, external world.
Envy shooteth at others and woundeth herself. - Thomas Fuller quote.
Envy shooteth at others and woundeth herself.

proverbs

Nothing sharpens sight like envy. - Thomas Fuller quote.
Nothing sharpens sight like envy.
Envy is a kind of praise. - John Gay quote.
Envy is a kind of praise.
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause. - Baltasar Gracian quote.
The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.
Even in envy may be discerned something of an instinct of justice, something of a wish to see universal fair-play, and things on a level. - Leigh Hunt quote.
Even in envy may be discerned something of an instinct of justice, something of a wish to see universal fair-play, and things on a level.

justice

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 quote.
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.
An envious heart makes a treacherous ear. - Zora Neale Hurston quote.
An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.
Envy is the gasoline on which a competitive society runs.
How Envy dogs success. - Letitia Landon quote.
How Envy dogs success.
Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation. - Doris Lessing quote.
Envy has always hidden behind moral indignation.
Doris Lessing Walking in the Shade: Volume Two of My Autobiography, 1949–1962
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, 
but envy is a timid and shame-faced passion we never dare acknowledge. - François de La Rochefoucauld quote.
We often pride ourselves on even the most criminal passions, 
but envy is a timid and shame-faced passion we never dare acknowledge.
Envy, like flame, soars upward. - Livy quote.
Envy, like flame, soars upward.
Livy History of Rome
I am Envy, begotten of a chimneysweeper and an oysterwife.  I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt. - Christopher Marlowe quote.
I am Envy, begotten of a chimneysweeper and an oysterwife.  I cannot read, and therefore wish all books were burnt.
Anger is a violent act, envy a constant habit—no one can be always angry, but he may be always envious. - Hannah More quote.
Anger is a violent act, envy a constant habit—no one can be always angry, but he may be always envious.
Envy is a gun with a faulty breech-lock which flares back and burns the gunner. - Austin O'Malley quote.
Envy is a gun with a faulty breech-lock which flares back and burns the gunner.
Envy, the meanest of vices, creeps on the ground like a serpent. - Ovid quote.
Envy, the meanest of vices, creeps on the ground like a serpent.
Ovid Letters From the Black Sea
If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill.
— Danish proverb

Danish proverbs proverbs

When all men praised the peacock for his tail, the birds cried out, "Look at his legs!  And what a voice!"
— Japanese proverb

proverbs Japanese proverbs

The vulgar bark at men of mark, as dogs bark at strangers. - Seneca quote.
The vulgar bark at men of mark, as dogs bark at strangers.
Envy is as persistent as memory, as intractable as a head cold.
To envy is to draw circles that isolate us from others, to take small, bitter trips that diminish the traveler.
Phyllis Theroux Night Lights: Bedtime Stories for Parents in the Dark
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach. - James Thomson quote.
Base envy withers at another's joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.
Some folk are always thirsting for water from other people's wells. - Jessamyn West quote.
Some folk are always thirsting for water from other people's wells.
A show of envy is an insult to oneself. - Yevgeny Yevtushenko quote.
A show of envy is an insult to oneself.
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. - Gautama Buddha quote.
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.

inner peace

I am so old that I can remember when other people's achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance. - Thomas Sowell quote.
I am so old that I can remember when other people's achievements were considered to be an inspiration, rather than a grievance.
I wish that I may never think the smiles of the great and powerful a sufficient inducement to turn aside from the straight path of honesty and the convictions of my own mind.
David Ricardo The Works and Correspondence of David Ricardo, Vol. VII
Envy, like thirst for revenge, is the wicked person's version of our natural sense of injustice. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb quote.
Envy, like thirst for revenge, is the wicked person's version of our natural sense of injustice.

revenge injustice

It takes some humanity to feel sympathy for those less fortunate than us; but it takes honor to avoid envying those who are much luckier. - Nassim Nicholas Taleb quote.
It takes some humanity to feel sympathy for those less fortunate than us; but it takes honor to avoid envying those who are much luckier.
Envy is admission of inferiority.
Envy is impossible to conceal. It manipulates you; like squid ink on your nose, visible to others but not to you.