Envied By Many Quotes & Sayings

The ignorant and the deluded are, I think, in a strange way to be envied. That which is not known of does not trouble us, while an imagined but insubstantial peril does not harm us. To know the truths behind reality is a far greater burden. — H.P. Lovecraft

A perfect character might be attended with the inconvenience of being envied and hated; and that a benevolent man should allow a few faults in himself, to keep his friends in countenance. — Benjamin Franklin

In District 12, looking old is something of an achievement since so many people die early. You see an elderly person, you want to congratulate them on their longevity, ask the secret of survival. A plump person is envied because they aren't scraping by like the majority of us. But here is different. Wrinkles aren't desirable. A round belly isn't a sign of success. — Suzanne Collins

We all want to be stars. The idea of being revered and envied must be encoded somewhere deep in our DNA. So must the desire to revere and envy others we imagine to be better, more accepted, and more popular than we are. The only problem is that the most necessary qualities required to be a celebrity
self-absorption, egomania, shamelessness
are the least attractive in a friend. — Tonya Hurley

We might have been ready to offer sympathy, but in actuality there were stronger reasons to want to congratulate her for having found such a powerful motive to feel sad. We should have envied her for having located someone without whom she so firmly felt she could not survive, beyond the gate let along in a bare student bedroom in a suburb of Rio. If she had been able to view her situation from a sufficient distance, she might have been able to recognise this as one of the high points in her life. — Alain De Botton

And I knew, too, that to live a life like Walter Cole's - a life almost mundane in the pleasure it derived from small happinesses and the beauty of the familiar, but uncommon in the value it attached to them - was something to be envied. — John Connolly

I have always envied people who believe strongly in religion, people who could face a tragedy by praying and know that it would be all right. As unscientific as it seems, well, it would be nice to lay the responsibilities and pain on someone else's larger shoulders. — Jodi Picoult

I envied these women I saw before me, their beauty still intact. Life has its revenge of life. Untimely death is the secret of eternal youth. — Shan Sa

The pastoral labours of the archbishop of Constantinople provoked and gradually united against him two sorts of enemies; the aspiring clergy, who envied his success, and the obstinate sinners, who were offended by his reproofs. When Chrysostom thundered from the pulpit of St. Sophia against the degeneracy of the Christians, his shafts were spent among the crowd, without wounding or even marking the character of any individual. — Edward Gibbon

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

Self-preservation and determination meant she could get away with anything. As her law-abiding, conventionally minded daughter, I secretly envied her this. She was not the clinging-vine type, nor one who could coax sugar from a lemon. Hers was the frontal attack with no inhibitions. She told the Nazis you could not trust Hitler, and they let her go. In the days of chaperones, she hitch-hiked a ride on a French destroyer along the coast of Crete; 'All quite proper, I had my cook with me,' she explained. — Mary Allsebrook

A treat indeed, to read Raymond Chandler for the first time. I almost envied the man, — Lawrence Block

Ultimate prosperity is one's value within. It takes a man of depth, morality, and charm to be envied yet without a sign of wealth or romance. A passion to prove such inner worth is his permission to achieve whatever he desires. — Criss Jami

Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty ... I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well. — Theodore Roosevelt

To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltness of those dead sea apples. — Dorothy L. Sayers

Mama's gaze pierced her. As a girl, Minerva had envied her mother's blue eyes. They'd seemed the color of tropical oceans and cloudless skies. But their color had faded over the years since Papa's death. Now their blue was the hue of dyed cambric worn three seasons. Or brittle middle-class china. The color of patience nearly worn through. — Tessa Dare

What was most annoying was that at first blush people usually took me to be good, to be kind, generous, loyal, faithful. Perhaps I did possess these virtues but if so it was because I was indiferent: I could afford to be good, kind, generous, loyal, and so forth, since I was free of envy. Envy was the one thing I was never a victim of. I have never envied anybody or anything. On the contrary, I have only felt pity for everybody and everything. — Henry Miller

Like the majority of irreproachably virtuous women, wearying often of the monotony of a virtuous life, Dolly from a distance excused illicit love, and even envied it a little. — Leo Tolstoy

Granted, many of them replied, that socialism may not result in riches for all but rather in a smaller production of wealth; nevertheless the masses will be happier under socialism, because they will share their worries with all their fellow citizens, and there will not be wealthier classes to be envied by poorer ones. The starving and ragged workers of Soviet Russia, they tell us, are a thousand times more joyful than the workers of the West who live under conditions which are luxurious compared to Russian standards; equality in poverty is a more satisfactory state than well-being where there are people who can flaunt more luxuries than the average man. — Ludwig Von Mises

He will be loved when dead, who was envied when he was living. — Horace

The envied are like bureaucrats; the more impersonal they are, the greater the illusion (for themselves and for others) of their power. — John Berger

I enjoy the collaboration. I always envied people in bands who got to have that interaction. I've done so many albums where I've been in the studio for 14 hours a day for six months just trying to come up with things on my own. It's a nice change helping other people with their music and not being all about what I'm trying to do myself. — Beck

In a spiritually sensitive culture, then, it might well be that age is something to be admired or envied. — Rowan Williams

Lolita, light of my life, fire of my loins. My sin, my soul. Lo-lee-ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth. Lo. Lee. Ta. She was Lo, plain Lo, in the morning, standing four feet ten in one sock. She was Lola in slacks. She was Dolly at school. She was Dolores on the dotted line. But in my arms she was always Lolita. Did she have a precursor? She did, indeed she did. In point of fact, there might have been no Lolita at all had I not loved, one summer, an initial girl-child. In a princedom by the sea. Oh when? About as many years before Lolita was born as my age was that summer. You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, exhibit number one is what the seraphs, the misinformed, simple, noble-winged seraphs, envied. Look at this tangle of thorns. — Vladimir Nabokov

We have the whole concept of popularity backward. We imagine it as a small and exclusive club of people we idolize or envy. But most popular people are hated by the majority. So, if you are despised by everyone outside your little clique, and liked only by those inside it, you are vastly unpopular by any objective measure. The key to ultimate popularity is not to be loved or envied by as many people as possible but to be loved or envied by the right people. — Tonya Hurley

They both professed to be atheists, but, judging by their conduct, they exhibited in their daily lives all those attributes which are fundamental to real, active Christianity. They were thoughtful for my comfort in every way, and shared many of my interests and pursuits with a zest which might well have been envied by much younger people. Together we went down to Torquay for a two-week holiday and returned to Brentwood completely refreshed. — E.R. Braithwaite

I'm loved by some, hated by many, envied by most, yet wanted by all. (Josiah) — Sherrilyn Kenyon

She seemed able to go to sleep whenever she wanted to, a skill I envied and did not have. — Neil Gaiman

He studied the woman before him, not as lovely as she once was, ordinary in appearance, scarred by living, abandoned by many, breathtakingly to be near and altogether unforgettable. "I have no friends," she spoke forth hauntingly. "I am alone." He couldn't believe it. But then he could for the rare creature near enough to touch was out of their league. She wasn't envied for the shallowness of appearance or the superficiality of status or possessions; she was envied for being uncommon and for possessing indomitable strength, something only a lifetime of suffering could shape. — Donna Lynn Hope

The American press exists for one purpose only, and that is to convince Americans that they are living in the greatest and most envied country in the history of the world. The Press tells the American people how awful every other country is and how wonderful the United States is and how evil communism is and how happy they should be to have freedom to buy seven different sorts of detergent. — Gore Vidal

He kissed her again, bringing both hands up behind her head to hold her still, and his hot lips slanted sideways across her open moutb. Her head spun crazily. She was dizzy. She could not breathe in here. She would fall in front of the queen. They would all know what he had done. There was no time left, surely. The castle portcullis would swing up, the door would be opened and His Grace would see them!
He pulled his mouth away and said against her flushed cheek, I have never envied any other man his bed before this long, long week. Now two men will possess you and neither really loves you, Mary Bullen. Think of me when you spread your sweet thighs for them! — Karen Harper

The young were always theoretical; only the middle-aged could realize the deadliness of principles. To subdue one's self to one's own ends might be dangerous, but to subdue one's self to other people's ends was dust and ashes. Yet there were those, still more unhappy, who envied even the ashy saltiness of those dead sea apples. — Dorothy L. Sayers

I had forgotten. Disgust shadows desire.
Another life is never safely envied. — Robert Wells

When she spoke his name, Beloved, he believed she meant it. He spoke of an adolescence I envied. Pampered, praised, educated . . . any child's dream. But we all awake from dreams. — Robin Hobb

The thing is that I am a member of that sad, ever-dwindling minority ... the child of an unbroken home. I have carried this albatross since the age of eleven, when I started at grammar school. Not a day would pass without somebody I knew turning out to be adopted or illegitimate, or to have mothers who were about to hare off with some bloke, or to have dead fathers and shabby stepfathers. What busy lives they led. How I envied their excuses for introspection, their ear-marked receptacles for every just antagonism and noble loyalty. — Martin Amis

They say teenagers can sleep all day. I often used to look at dogs and be amazed by the way they seemed to sleep for twenty hours a day. But I envied them too. It was the kind of lifestyle I could relate to.
We didn't sleep for twenty hours, but we gave it our best shot. — John Marsden

My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied. — Horatio Nelson

My brother had just been appointed Secretary of Nevada Territory
an office of such majesty that it concentrated in itself the duties and dignities of Treasurer, Comptroller, Secretary of State, and Acting Governor in the Governor's absence. A salary of eighteen hundred dollars a year and the title of "Mr. Secretary," gave to the great position an air of wild and imposing grandeur. I was young and ignorant, and I envied my brother. — Mark Twain

She'd always envied beautiful women. Not solely for the beauty itself but because when attributes were parceled out by whatever deity assigned them, beauty seemed to come tethered to confidence. She craved that more than anything. — Tessa Dare

How much I'd always envied the tight life of voles. The hidey hole was happiness. — Sam Lipsyte

Unlike an envied and admirable few, I separate my friends and almost never dare mingle one group with another. When I do, it is usually a social disaster, like mixing drinks. I love good beer and I love good wine, but you cannot drink both on the same evening without suffering. I love the friends with whom I play or once daily played snooker and tooted quantities of high-grade pulverized Andean flake; I love the friends with whom I dine at preposterously expensive restaurants; I love the friends with whom I'm film-making or mincing on the stage. I love and value them all equally and don't think of them as stratified or in tiers, one group in some way higher or more important than the rest, but the thought of introducing them to each other makes me shiver and shudder with cringing embarrassment. — Stephen Fry

We were so poor we envied everyone we ever heard of. — Sally Stanford

Since biblical times, and probably before, the wealthy have been envied and condemned. — Conrad Black

Off to one side his fine white teacup waited for him with a patience Aria envied — Patrick Rothfuss