Envy

Sunday, August 10, 2008 – Envy

 

The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause. ~ Baltasar Gracian

 

Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it. ~ Balzac

 

Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks. ~ Ovid

 

Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed. ~ Bertrand Russell

 

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run. ~ George Bernard Shaw

 

The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks a leg, he will be able to walk better himself. ~ Helmut Schoeck

 

There is no sweeter sound than the crumbling of one’s fellow man. ~ Groucho Marx

 

I envy people who drink – at least they know what to blame everything on. ~ Oscar Levant

 

Sympathy one receives for nothing, envy must be earned. ~ Robert Lembke

 

Man will do many things to get himself loved; he will do all things to get himself envied. ~ Mark Twain

 

Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred. ~ François de La Rochefoucauld

 

I am Envy. I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned. ~ Christopher Marlowe, Doctor Faustus

 

Envy, to which th’ ignoble mind’s a slave, Is emulation in the learn’d or brave. ~ Alexander Pope, Essay on Man (ep. II, l. 191)

 

Such men as he be never at heart’s ease Whiles they behold a greater than themselves, And therefore are they very dangerous. ~ William Shakespeare. Julius Caesar (Caesar at I, ii)

 

Envy is ignorance. Imitation is suicide. ~ Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

I envy animals for two things – their ignorance of evil to come, and their ignorance of what is said about them. ~ Voltaire

 

There is some good in public envy, whereas in private there is none; for public envy is as an ostracism that eclipseth men when they grow too great; and therefore it is a bridle also to great ones to keep within bounds. ~ Francis Bacon

 

The dullard’s envy of brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to bad end. ~ Max Beerbohm

 

A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones. ~ Proverbs (ch. XIV, v. 30)

 

If envy, like anger, did not burn itself in its own fire, and consume and destroy those persons it possesses, before it can destroy those it wishes worst to, it would set the whole world on fire, and leave the most excellent persons the most miserable. ~ Lord Clarendon, Edward Hyde

 

Envy, like a cold prison, benumbs and stupefies; and, conscious of its own impotence, folds its arms in despair. ~ Jeremy Collier

 

We had rather do anything than acknowledge the merit of another if we can help it. We cannot bear a superior or an equal. Hence ridicule is sure to prevail over truth, for the malice of mankind, thrown into the scale, gives the casting weight. ~ William Hazlitt

 

We spend our time envying people whom we wouldn’t wish to be. ~ Jean Rostand

 

When any person of really eminent virtue becomes the object of envy, the clamor and abuse by which he is assailed is but the sign and accompaniment of his success in doing service to the public. And if he is a truly wise man, he will take no more notice of it than the moon does of the howling of the dogs. Her only answer to them is to shine on. ~ Archbishop Richard Whately

 

If we did but know how little some enjoy of the great things that they possess, there would not be much envy in the world. ~ Edward Young