"We make ourselves fools to disport ourselves And spend our flatteries to drink those men Upon whose age we void it up again With poisonous spite and envy."
Envy quotes
Envy
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Envy quotes (page 11 of 44)
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"Diffidence may check resolution and obstruct performance, but compensates its embarrassments by more important advantages; it conciliates the proud, and softens the severe; averts envy from excellence, and censure from miscarriage."
"There is no observation more frequently made by such as employ themselves in surveying the conduct of mankind, than that marriage, though the dictate of nature, and the institution of Providence, is yet very often the cause of misery, and that those who enter into that state can seldom forbear to express their repentance, and their envy of those whom either chance or caution hath withheld from it."
"Every other enjoyment malice may destroy; every other panegyric envy may withhold; but no human power can deprive the boaster of his own encomiums."
"Envy is as evil a thing as arrogance."
"The vice of envy is not only a dangerous, but a mean vice; for it is always a confession of inferiority. It may promote conduct which will be fruitful of wrong to others, and it must cause misery to the man who feels it."
"Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire."
"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."
"A nonviolent occupation is that occupation which is fundamentally free from violence and which involves no exploitation or envy of others."
"There is a world-wide conflict between capital and labour, and the poor envy the rich."
"Envy, slothful vice, Never makes its way in lofty characters, But, like the skulking viper, creeps and crawls Close to the ground."
"Yet we always envy others, comparing our shadows to their sunlit sides."
"The praise we give to new comers into the world arises from the envy we bear to those who are established."
"There is something to be said for jealousy, because it only designs the preservation of some good which we either have or think wehave a right to. But envy is a raging madness that cannot bear the wealth or fortune of others."
"Pride, which inspires us with so much envy, is sometimes of use toward the moderating of it too."
"Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others."
"People are often vain of their passions, even of the worst, but envy is a passion so timid and shame-faced that no one ever dare avow her."
"Moderation is caused by the fear of exciting the envy and contempt which those merit who are intoxicated with their good fortune; it is a vain display of our strength of mind, and in short the moderation of men at their greatest height is only a desire to appear greater than their fortune."
"The hate of favourites is only a love of favour. The envy of NOT possessing it, consoles and softens its regrets by the contempt it evinces for those who possess it, and we refuse them our homage, not being able to detract from them what attracts that of the rest of the world."
"Sometimes we owe a friend to the lucky circumstance that we give him no cause for envy."