Quotes about envy: the most famous quotes about this deadly vice
Envy is one of the seven deadly sins and there is no question why. It is a profoundly harmful feeling both for those who experience it and for those who suffer from it. Envy should not be confused with jealousy: in the latter case, a person suffers at the thought that someone might take away something that already belongs to them. In the case of the envious, however, it is more of a hostility towards those who have something that he craves but does not belong to him. In both cases, at the origin of this state of mind there are deep problems of self-esteem and a sense of inferiority towards others. To better understand the meaning of this feeling, we have collected a series of phrases, quotes and aphorisms that, in a nutshell, are able to perfectly grasp its essence and explain why it would be appropriate to get rid of certain thoughts.
Since low self-confidence is one of the most common causes of envious thoughts, watch this video and discover some exercises to boost your self-esteem!
Phrases about envy
For the envious, the neighbor's grass is always greener. It is this conviction that triggers in them that deep sense of annoyance towards any goal and happiness of others. Although this is a very common sentiment, it is rather difficult to admit. Rarely, in fact, an envious one will shout loudly to be so because he is aware that it is a mean attitude. At the same time, however, there are many eminent figures who over the years have developed thoughts and reflections on envy and we have decided to collect them below for you.
Envy is the ulcer of the soul.
Socrates
Envy lurks in the depths of the human heart like a viper in its lair.
Honore de Balzac
Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.
Heraclitus
What makes this world terrible is that we put the same passion into trying to be happy and preventing others from being happy.
Count of Rivarol
If envy were a fever, the whole world would be sick.
Danish proverb
Do not overestimate what you have received and do not envy your neighbor: he who envies his neighbor will not achieve peace of mind.
Buddha
The envious will die, but envy will never.
Molière
Often the most criminal passions are pompous; but envy is a shy and shameful passion that does not dare to confess.
François de La Rochefoucauld
As rust consumes iron, so envy consumes the envious.
Antisthenics
Those who have less self-confidence are the most envious
William Hazlitt
What is the man who envies the other man, if not a misery that envies another misery?
Arturo Graf
Envy is like a rubber ball that the more you push it under, the more it comes back to the surface.
Alberto Moravia
Envy blinds men and makes it impossible for them to think clearly.
Malcolm X
The envious person is a helpless person unable to resign himself.
Roberto Gervaso
There is no rest for the person who envies, and there is no love for the rude person.
Ali ibn Abi Talib
Do what feels right in your heart, as you will be criticized anyway. You'll be damned if you do, damned if you don't.
Eleanor Roosevelt
Nothing is as hateful as the luck of others.
Francis Scott Fitzgerald
Envy is ignorance, imitation is suicide.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Don't waste time with envy. Sometimes you're ahead. Sometimes you fall behind. The ride is long and in the end it is only with yourself.
Mary Schmich
Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.
Josh Billings
Those who live with envy die of anger.
Anonymous
Hate is active, and envy is passive; there is only one step from envy to hatred.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
Envy is the stupidest of vices, because there is not a single advantage that is gained from it.
Honore de Balzac
The millionaire would enjoy nothing if he lacked the envy of the people.
Alfredo Panzini
Envy, the worst of vices, creeps into the earth like a snake.
Publius Ovid Naso
The flower which is alone does not need to envy the thorns which are numerous.
Rabindranath Tagore
Comparison is the thief of joy.
Theodore Roosevelt
Envy is the cowardly side of hatred, and all its ways are bleak and desolate.
Charles Caleb Colton
Life is an invisible vessel and you are what you throw into it. Throw envy, dissatisfaction and nastiness and anxiety will overflow. Throw in kindness, empathy and love and serenity will overflow.
Fabrizio Caramagna
Envy suffers for the good fortune of others, and not being able to enjoy their own successes, due to their own insufficiency, maliciously enjoys the failures of others.
Cesare Marchi
In the end, there is no vice that harms man's happiness as much as envy.
Descartes
Blessed is he who has learned to admire, but not envy,
to follow but not imitate,
to praise but not flatter,
to lead but not to manipulate.
William Arthur Ward
Five great enemies of peace live in us: greed, ambition, envy, anger and pride. If these enemies were to disappear by magic, we would all unerringly enjoy an endless peace.
Petrarch
As a moth gnaws at a garment, so envy consumes a person.
John Chrysostom
Phrases to dedicate to those who envy us
For many it is a form of admiration. In fact, when someone envies us, it means that they want something we have and he doesn't. This implies that we are in a better condition than his and, therefore, the envy of others towards us should not disturb us: this feeling, in fact, hurts more to those who feel it than to the one to whom it is intended. If you want to dedicate a nice catchphrase to those who envy you, here is a series of quotes that you can inspire yourself!
The higher you climb, the smaller the eye of envy sees you.
Friedrich Nietzsche
They envy my victory; let them, therefore, envy my efforts, my honesty and the methods with which I have conquered it.
Gaius Sallustio Crispus
The number of people who envy us confirms our abilities.
Oscar Wilde
All envy is in proportion to desire.
Samuel Johnson
The envious never dies just once, but as many times as the envied lives greeted by the applause of the people.
Baltasar Gracián y Morales
Do you have enemies? Good. This means that you have fought for something at times in your life.
Winston Churchill
Envy and malice are children of ignorance, some people attack others to hide their existential limits.
Anonymous
The dog locked in the fence barks at the one who runs around freely.
Marty Rubin
Envy, like fire, always goes to the highest places.
Tito Livio
Your life must really suck if you waste time judging mine.
Anonymous
Anyone who has something special and rare will always be envied by someone. Unfortunately it is the nature of things.
The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
In life everything returns: the wickedness of the sender, the love of those who gave it, the lies to those who told them, the envy of those who hear it.
Anonymous
The envious person praises me without knowing it.
Kahlil Gibran
The higher we rise, the smaller we seem to those who cannot fly.
Friedrich Nietzsche
Whoever envies another recognizes his superiority.
Samuel Johnson
It is better to be envied than pitied.
Herodotus
No crime is as great as daring to excel.
Winston Churchill
Envy is very similar to love: being envied is almost being loved.
César François Adolphe d’Houdetot
Value generates envy in petty minds and emulation in great souls.
Henry Fielding
People die more of envy than of heart attack. Know that!
Anonymous
The silence of the envious makes a lot of noise.
Khalil Gibran
Put your soul in peace: there are brilliant people. Trying to turn them off for a moment of light will never make you stars!
Anonymous
The envy of the idiot for the brilliant man always finds some consolation in the idea that the brilliant man will have a bad end.
Max Beerbohm
Envy is the tax that all those who excel in something must pay.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Beware there is a bad disease around called malice: it comes from the envy virus.
Anonymous
When they no longer have hair they find long hair ridiculous.
Paul Léautaud
Phrases about envy of friends, relatives and acquaintances
Sometimes, unfortunately, it happens that envy comes to pollute even the most solid relationships. It is not uncommon for friends and family to be envious of each other. Here, then, are some phrases and quotes that deal with this sad phenomenon.
Anyone can sympathize with a friend's pain, but only a noble soul can sympathize with a friend's success.
Oscar Wilde
It is in the character of few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.
Aeschylus
I am immune from envy, free to feel admiration and friendship, what a beauty! There is nothing sadder than someone who suffers from the success of others, who is a slave to criticism and resentment, who exudes envy, who struggles in spite: an unhappy one.
Jorge Amado
To feel envy is human, to savor the joy of the harm of others is diabolical.
Arthur Schopenhauer
The envy of the friend is worse than the snare of the enemy.
Anonymous
I have never admired someone else's luck so much that I became dissatisfied with mine.
Marco Tullio Cicerone
Do not envy, applaud and then do better.
DavideMapelli, Twitter
The envious one cries more for the good of others than for his own evil.
Francisco de Quevedo
Envy is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.
Malachy McCourt
Envy is the art of counting the luck of others rather than one's own.
Harold Coffin
The gain of others is almost always perceived as one's own loss.
Wilhelm Busch
Of course there is luck. Otherwise how could we explain the success of those we don't like?
Jean Cocturan
The true friend is not the one who is supportive in misfortune, but the one who endures your success
Seneca
The effect of envy is not a desire to possess that thing, but rather that others do not possess it.
Fragmentarius
Whenever a friend succeeds, a small part of me dies.
Gore Vidal
The envious man thinks that if his neighbor breaks his leg, he will be able to walk better.
Helmut Schoeck
To congratulate means to gracefully express your envy.
Ambrose Bierce
Do not let the snake of envy enter your body: it is a snake that gnaws at the brain and corrupts the heart.
Edmondo De Amicis
Men do not know their own happiness, but that of others never escapes them.
Pierre Daninos
