ENVY

Related Subjects: Avarice, Desire, Jealousy, Rivalry

1. For not many men, the proverb saith,
   Can love a friend whom fortune prospereth
   Unenvying.—AESCHYLUS, Agamemnon
   

2. A man that hath no virtue in himself ever envieth virtue in others; for men's minds will either feed upon their own good, or upon others' evil; and who wanteth the one will prey upon the other; and whoso is out of hope to attain to another's virtue, will seek to come at even hand by depressing another's fortune.—BACON
   

3. Envy's a coal comes hissing hot from hell.—PHILIP J. BAILEY, Festus
   

4. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.—Bible, Exodus 20:17
   

5. Envy is like a fly that passes all a body's sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores.—GEORGE CHAPMAN
   

6. Antisthenes used to say that envious people were devoured by their own disposition, just as iron is by rust.—DIOGENES LAERTIUS, Antisthenes
   

7. Fools may our scorn, not envy raise,
   For envy is a kind of praise.—JOHN GAY
   

8. Envy feels not its own happiness but when it may be compared with the misery of others.—SAMUEL JOHNSON
   

9. All envy is proportionate to desire; we are uneasy at the attainments of another, according as we think our own happiness would be advanced by the addition of that which he withholds from us; and therefore whatever depresses immoderate wishes,will, at the same time, set the heart free from the corrosion of envy, and exempt us from that vice which is, above most others, tormenting to ourselves, hateful to the world, and productive of mean artifices and sordid projects.—SAMUEL JOHNSON
   

10. Envy sets the stronger seal on desert; if he have no enemies, I should esteem his fortune most wretched.—BEN JONSON

11. The truest mark of being born with great qualities, is being born without envy.—LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Maxims

12. Envy has no other quality but that of detracting from virtue.—LIVY, History

13. Other passions have objects to flatter them, and which seem to content and satisfy them for a while. There is power in ambition, pleasure, in luxury, and pelf in covetousness; but envy can gain nothing but vexation.—MONTAIGNE, Essays

14. Envy is a pain of mind that successful men cause their neighbors.—ONASANDER, The General

15. Envy always implies conscious inferiority wherever it resides.—PLINY THE ELDER

16. Better be envied than pitied.—Proverb

17. Envy shoots at others, and wounds herself.—Proverb

18. An envious man waxes lean with the fatness of his neighbour.—Proverb

19. It is difficult keeping that which is admired by many.—PUBLILIUS SYRUS, Sententiae

20. How bitter a thing it is to look into happiness through another man's
    eyes!—SHAKESPEARE, As You Like It
    

21. There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.—SHERIDAN, The Critic
    

22. 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