Welcome to our Envy Quotes page, where we delve into the complex emotion of envy through the words of wise thinkers, authors, and personalities. Envy, often described as the green-eyed monster, is a universal feeling that has captivated the human psyche for centuries. It can be both a powerful motivator and a destructive force, leading individuals to compare themselves to others and experience a range of emotions, from admiration to resentment. In this collection of envy quotes, you’ll find insights, reflections, and perspectives that shed light on this intricate emotion, allowing you to explore its nuances and perhaps gain a deeper understanding of its impact on our lives.
Below, you will discover a curated selection of envy quotes that you can use for various purposes. Whether you want to share them on social media, include them in your writing, or simply reflect on their wisdom, these quotes offer valuable insights into the world of envy. Feel free to copy them, place them on images, or enhance them with stylish fonts to create your own unique expressions of this timeless emotion. Let’s dive into the world of envy through the words of those who have pondered its intricacies and complexities.
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
I do not envy the headache you will have when you awake. In the meantime, dream of large women. Cary Elwes
Our citizens and those who have gone before us charted the broad outlines of where we need to go, and they would envy our opportunity to translate those dreams into action. And I believe they will judge us very harshly should we fail to act. Dave Freudenthal
Never envy a man his lady. Behind it all lays a living hell. Charles Bukowski
In Britain, because I live here, I can also run into problems of envy and competition. But all this is just in a day’s work for a writer. You can’t put stuff out there without someone calling you a complete fool. Oh, well. Alain de Botton
Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts. Jean Vanier
I’ve always had rock star envy. Unfortunately, writing is a pedestrian, tame occupation done while sitting in coffee-stained pajamas in front of a computer rather than prowling around a huge stage in sweaty leather pants, so I have to get my kicks vicariously. Kate Christensen
A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned. Xun Kuang
When people unfortunately use religion to facilitate their envy, arrogance and hate, communalism surfaces. Radhanath Swami
Jokes rot. They’re not like songs. I always envy singers – Sting is always going to sing ‘Roxanne’. But people want to hear new jokes. I’ve written jokes as good as ‘Roxanne’, I believe. But I can’t tell them again. Chris Rock
It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered. Aeschylus
My tattoo is of a cannon in Vancouver that I got in a fleeting moment of stupidity maybe 14 years ago. A lot of people have really beautiful tattoos, and I get real tattoo envy. But then other people basically just treat them like bumper stickers for their bodies. Ryan Reynolds
Each person’s drive to overwork is unique, and doing too much numbs every workaholic’s emotions differently. Sometimes overwork numbs depression, sometimes anger, sometimes envy, sometimes sexuality. Or the overworker runs herself ragged in a race for attention. Arlie Russell Hochschild
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. Josh Billings
The modern Left is not driven by fairness. It is guided by an ideology of greed and envy. Those are vices, not virtues. Stephen Moore
Envy’s a coal comes hissing hot from Hell. Philip James Bailey
When the enemies’ land force is once conquered and expelled from the continent, our Marine will rise as if by enchantment and become, within the memory of persons now living, the wonder and envy of the world. John Paul Jones
When you do well, everybody’s after you, and sometimes the motives are legitimate, and sometimes it’s envy and jealousy. Robert Kraft
When Democrats aren’t being fiscally reckless, they are economically irresponsible. Democrats bemoan corporate greed and have not a positive word to say about the entrepreneurs that have made our economy the envy of the world. Max Boot
Whoever cultivates the golden mean avoids both the poverty of a hovel and the envy of a palace. Horace
Any designer believes his gun is the best, and when its test performance is a bit less impressive compared to others, he feels bitterness and envy. Mikhail Kalashnikov
I envy people with dreams and passions, but I don’t think that way. I still don’t have a ‘bliss’ to follow. For people like me – I suspect that’s most people – holding out for a ‘dream’ or a ‘passion’ is paralyzing. I just like having work I enjoy that feels meaningful. That’s hard enough… but it’s enough. Jane Pauley
Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger, because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can’t hope to attain through hard work and emulation. Martha Nussbaum
I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy – I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection. Irvin D. Yalom
Only fools live in the past or carry envy to the present. Chi Chi Rodriguez
Above all, you must fight conceit, envy, and every kind of ill-feeling in your heart. Abraham Cahan
You know, writing is really difficult, and it takes a real patience and a skill. I don’t know if I have that. I admire it in others, so much, and I envy it. Adam Scott
The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build. Margaret Thatcher
I almost envy people who say whatever they want. Kate Bosworth
I envy my Jewish friends the ritual of saying kaddish – a ritual that seems perfectly conceived, with its built-in support group and its ceremonious designation of time each day devoted to remembering the lost person. Meghan O’Rourke
The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring. Victor Hugo
Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own. Harold Coffin
Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise. John Gay
Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God. Radhanath Swami
A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain. A. A. Milne
Envy and jealousy are incurable diseases. Robert Kraft
Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind. Buddha
Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they’re big, flashing signs that something needs to change. Gretchen Rubin
With a few flowers in my garden, half a dozen pictures and some books, I live without envy. Lope de Vega
Science may provide the most useful way to organize empirical, reproducible data, but its power to do so is predicated on its inability to grasp the most central aspects of human life: hope, fear, love, hate, beauty, envy, honor, weakness, striving, suffering, virtue. Paul Kalanithi
The praise of ancient authors proceeds not from the reverence of the dead, but from the competition and mutual envy of the living. Thomas Hobbes
If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang. Charley Reese
All who have taken it upon themselves to rule over others have incurred hatred and unpopularity for a time; but if one has a great aim to pursue, this burden of envy must be accepted, and it is wise to accept it. Pericles
People who make the choice to study, work hard or do whatever they endeavor is to give it the max on themselves to reach to the top level. And you have the people who get envy and jealous, yet are not willing to put that work in, and they want to get the same praise. Evander Holyfield
Envy is an insult to oneself. Yevgeny Yevtushenko
Envy is the central fact of American life. Gore Vidal
If we weren’t born with anti-social passions – narcissism, envy, lust, meanness, greed, hunger for power, just to name the more obvious – why the need for so many laws, whether religious or secular, that govern behavior? Dennis Prager
Never underestimate the power of jealousy and the power of envy to destroy. Never underestimate that. Oliver Stone
Five enemies of peace inhabit with us – avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace. Petrarch
With colleagues in the work environment, we fail to see the source of their envy or the reason for their manipulations; our attempts at influencing them are based on the assumptions that they want the same things as ourselves. Robert Greene
You might think that religion was the one area in which professional jealousy would take a back seat. But no: ecclesiastical memoirs are as viperish as any, though their envy tends to cloak itself in piety. Craig Brown
I envy the dead. William Mulholland
Pride, avarice, and envy are in every home. Thornton Wilder
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. Heraclitus
Never trust anyone who wants what you’ve got. Friend or no, envy is an overwhelming emotion. Eubie Blake
The few who do are the envy of the many who only watch. Jim Rohn
I’d the upbringing a nun would envy. Until I was fifteen I was more familiar with Africa than my own body. Joe Orton
Find people not to envy but to admire. Do not the profitable but the admirable deed. Live by ideals. Jonathan Sacks
Let others either envy or pity me; I care not, so long as I enjoy myself. Joseph Hall
The funny thing about insane people is that it is kind of the opposite of being a celebrity. Nobody envies you. Robert M. Pirsig
Let age, not envy, draw wrinkles on thy cheeks. Thomas Browne
Labour want to control all parts of the economy and society so that they can pursue the politics of envy. It would leave us all paying higher taxes and the economy in tatters. Liz Truss
Pride, envy, avarice – these are the sparks have set on fire the hearts of all men. Dante Alighieri
If you wish to travel far and fast, travel light. Take off all your envies, jealousies, unforgiveness, selfishness and fears. Cesare Pavese
Worth begets in base minds, envy; in great souls, emulation. Henry Fielding
I envy people who drink – at least they know what to blame everything on. Oscar Levant
I envy the happiness of others… I envy the sense of belonging… I seem always to be remaking myself. Richard Eyre
Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot be cured by what is right with America. William J. Clinton
They envy the distinction I have won; let them therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it. Sallust
I don’t envy or much respect people who are completely politicised. Christopher Hitchens
When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad. Tacitus
Family is so central to Afghan life that all Afghan stories are family stories. Family is something I simply can’t resist because all the great themes of human life – duty, grief, sacrifice, love, envy – you find all those things within families. Khaled Hosseini
A painter, who finds no satisfaction in mere representation, however artistic, in his longing to express his inner life, cannot but envy the ease with which music, the most non-material of the arts today, achieves this end. He naturally seeks to apply the methods of music to his own art. Wassily Kandinsky
The flower which is single need not envy the thorns that are numerous. Rabindranath Tagore
Bryan Adams might not be what I want to put on, but he’s a pop singer with a great voice and great guitar tone. Plus, he’s done more for Canada than Rush have, because he works all the time. I envy him for that. Alex Lifeson
Envy like fire always makes for the highest points. Livy
I go about looking at horses and cattle. They eat grass, make love, work when they have to, bear their young. I am sick with envy of them. Sherwood Anderson
Oh God, don’t envy me, I have my own pains. Barbra Streisand
I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy – I don’t disparage envy, but I don’t accept it as legitimately my master. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Birds have wings; they’re free; they can fly where they want when they want. They have the kind of mobility many people envy. Roger Tory Peterson
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. Carine Roitfeld
I’m not confident around compliments or being celebrated, and I’m not comfortable with the thought of envy, which some people thrive on. Rachel Weisz
One of my favorite things about America is our breathtaking collection of national and state parks, many of which boast wonders the Psalmist would envy. Eric Metaxas
Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy. Aristotle
Sometimes I feel like I’m lacking a playfulness. I envy guys who are consistently able to maintain a playful, optimistic perspective on things. Eric Dane
When I was little, I thought my country was the best on the planet. And I grew up singing a song called ‘Nothing To Envy.’ And I was very proud. In school, we spent a lot of time studying the history of Kim Il-Sung, but we never learned much about the outside world, except that America, South Korea, Japan are the enemies. Lee Hyeon-seo
Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it. William Shenstone
Beg of God the removal of envy, that God may deliver you from externals, and bestow upon you an inward occupation, which will absorb you so that your attention is not drawn away. Rumi
The ineffable joy of forgiving and being forgiven forms an ecstasy that might well arouse the envy of the gods. Elbert Hubbard
When one begins, as I did, to analyze men after a fairly long experience of analyzing women, one receives a most surprising impression of the intensity of this envy of pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood, as well as of breasts and of the act of suckling. Karen Horney
There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy. Richard Brinsley Sheridan
Exploiting people’s emotions of fear, envy and anxiety is not hope, it’s not change, it’s partisanship. We don’t need partisanship. We don’t need demagoguery, we need solutions. Paul Ryan
A woman has two smiles that an angel might envy, the smile that accepts a lover before words are uttered, and the smile that lights on the first born babe, and assures it of a mother’s love. Thomas Chandler Haliburton
We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do. Karl A. Menninger
What we see today is an American economy that has boomed because of policies and developments of the 1950s and ’60s: the interstate-highway system, massive funding for science and technology, a public-education system that was the envy of the world and generous immigration policies. Fareed Zakaria
Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn’t that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you. Marilyn Monroe
Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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! Salma Hayek
There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue. Erich Fromm
I envy paranoids; they actually feel people are paying attention to them. Susan Sontag