Quotes & Sayings About Envying Others

Are your principles not engraved in all hearts, and in order to learn your laws is it not enough to go back into oneself and listen to the voice of one's conscience in the silence of the passions? There you have true philosophy. Let us learn to be satisfied with that, and without envying the glory of those famous men who are immortalized in the republic of letters, let us try to set between them and us that glorious distinction which people made long ago between two great peoples: one knew how to speak well; the other how to act well. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Mahtab looked out of the window at the moon clearing the rooftops, bathing everything around in its silver light. She sighed, envying Nasim's freedom. For just like Mahtab's namesake, as the moonlight was beholden to the sun, she was beholden to her family. — Azin Sametipour

Envying another man's happiness is madness; you wouldn't know what to do with it if you had it. — Andre Gide

In America, if you succeed, you don't have to apologize. In Italy, success is envied, and envy is the worst, worst, worst thing in the world. It's easy for me to say because I have had more than many others, but at the end of the day, I have never envied anyone. I wish to no one that they waste their time envying anyone else. — Lapo Elkann

A person worth envying is a person who doesn't envy — Boonaa Mohammed

Though I have said that I envy the normal man to the point of exasperation, yet I would not care to be in his place as he is now (though I will not stop envying him. No, no; anyway the underground life is more advantageous!) There, at any rate, one can
bah! But after all, even now I am lying! I am lying because I know myself as surely as two times two makes four, that it is not at all underground that is better, but something different, quite different, for which I long but which I cannot find! Damn underground! — Fyodor Dostoyevsky

There is, however, a far more common ailment among us - and that is pride from the bottom looking up. It is manifest in so many ways, such as faultfinding, gossiping, backbiting, and murmuring, living beyond our means, envying, coveting, withholding gratitude and praise that might lift another, and being unforgiving and jealous. — Ezra Taft Benson

But I was born in the image of God, a man, a creator, with power of life and death, a father, blessed with the gift of the seed of Adam, a sower of seed, to bring forth generations of new life.
This I was, and envying a kettle. — Richard Llewellyn

Envy, envy eats them alive. If you had money, they'd envy you that. But since you don't, they envy you for having such a good, bright, loving daughter. They envy you for just being a happy man. They envy you for not envying them. One of the greatest sorrows of human existence is that some people aren't happy merely to be alive but find their happiness only in the misery of others. — Dean Koontz

It was only recently that Isabelle had realized other girls weren't just for envying, avoiding, or disliking. — Cassandra Clare

There is no end to the creativity, ingenuity, and tenacity of those who look for reasons to criticize. They cannot seem to release their grip on grudges. They gossip and find fault with others. They nurse wounds for decades, taking every opportunity to tear down and demean others. This is not pleasing to the Lord, 'for where envying and strife is, there is confusion and every evil work' (James 3:16). — Dieter F. Uchtdorf

How amazing it is to be alive Anyone who lives and breathes and puts both feet on the ground, What possible reason could he have for envying the gods — Paul Claudel

Instead of envying what others have, decide what YOU want out of life and focus on achieving it. — Beverly Engel

I pass through this people and keep mine eyes open: they do not forgive me for do not envying their virtues. They bite at me, because I say unto them that for small people, small virtues are necessary - and because it is hard for me to understand that small people are necessary! — Friedrich Nietzsche

She craves men but women are her most abiding lovers. Her friends are her soul mates, all the love without the consumption of sex and romance, a different kind of intimacy. Women make love by admiring each other, studying and envying each other and mixing it all up in a pot of devotion. — G.G. Renee Hill

But can you imagine how some of them were envying you your freedom to work, to think, to travel, to enter a room as yourself, not as some child's mother or some man's wife? ... we have no familiar, ready-made name for a woman who defines herself, by choice, neither in relation to children nor to men, who is self-identified, who has chosen herself. — Adrienne Rich

Contentment can only be found in not envying others or comparing yourself to them but in being satisfied with what you have. — Larry Herzberg

I settled into a contented routine of working, spending my free time with Veronica and, back in my student room, wanking explosively to fantasies of her splayed beneath me or arched above me. Daily intimacy made me proud of knowing about make-up, clothes policy, the feminine razor, and the mystery and consequences of a woman's periods. I found myself envying this regular reminder of something so wholly female and defining, so connected to the great cycle of nature. — Julian Barnes

Tom Sawyer the Pirate looked around upon the envying juveniles about him and confessed in his heart that this was the proudest moment of his life. — Mark Twain

How many times his (Port's) friends, envying him his life, had said to him: "Your life is so simple." "Your life seems always to go in a straight line." Whenever they had said the words he heard in them an implicit reproach: it is not difficult to build a straight road on a treeless plain. He felt that what they really meant to say was: "You have chosen the easiest terrain." But if they elected to place obstacles in their own way-which they clearly did, encumbering themselves with every sort of unnecessary allegiance-that was no reason why they should object to his having simplified his life. So it was with a certain annoyance that he would say: "Everyone makes the life he wants. Right?" as though there were nothing further to be said. — Paul Bowles

My life hasn't been perfect, yet I've never wasted my time envying anyone else. If something wasn't the best it could be - I made it better. — Aleatha Romig

A hundred pounds! He couldn't remember ever having seen a hundred pounds, all at one time. He found himself envying his father, who had nothing to worry about except the future of mankind. — John Mortimer

We must not, then, aspire to please the multitude. For we do not practice what will please them, but what we know is remote from their disposition. "Let us not be desirous of vainglory," says the apostle, "provoking one another, envying one another. — Clement Of Alexandria

I think that the trademark of the Devil in this world, is the awful rift between women. Women backbiting other women, women envying other women and so on and so forth. And then there is the telltale sign of God in this world, which is the intoxicating potion of joy that is concocted when a woman reaches out to another woman, when women will take an extra step, go an extra mile, or just go out of their way an inch for their fellow woman, regardless of the varying degrees of things we hold important such as beauty, intelligence, status and so on and so forth. Beautiful acts of God are seen in the kindness of women towards other women. And when I say this, I am also thinking about gay men in the same light. — C. JoyBell C.

Stepping out into the hall of statues, he rushed down past the marble figures, envying them their calm poses and their serene faces. Sure as shit the everything's-cool routine made being inanimate seem like a good deal. Whereas it meant they felt no joy, they didn't have to go through this burning pain, either. — J.R. Ward

How do you wish to live in lifetime existence; envying, hating and loving? It is better to live life loving — Lailah Gifty Akita

Envy, my children, follows pride; whoever is envious is proud. See, envy comes to us from Hell; the devils having sinned through pride, sinned also through envy, envying our glory, our happiness. Why do we envy the happiness and the goods of others? Because we are proud; we should like to be the sole possessors of talents, riches, of the esteem and love of all the world! We hate our equals, because they are our equals; our inferiors, from the fear that they may equal us; our superiors, because they are above us. — John Vianney

In other words, without being tossed about by personal feelings and ideas, just returning to the life of my true self, without envying or being arrogant toward those around me, neither being self-deprecating nor competing with others, yet on the other hand not falling into the trap of laziness, negligence, or carelessness - just manifesting that life of my self with all the vigor I have - here is where the glory of life comes forth and where the light of buddha shines.53 Religious light shines where we manifest our own life. — Kosho Uchiyama

I love print fiction, but sometimes when I'm reading a good graphic novel or manga, I find myself envying those who work in an illustrated format. — Jane Lindskold

Our focus should be on making the most of our own lives, regardless of whether we start at the bottom or the top- not on envying the advantages and achievements of others. — Yaron Brook

Envy is a sign that you are being overtaken — Bangambiki Habyarimana

I stared at Eph, envying the fact that he already had a costume, though whether it was actually qualified as a costume was debatable. He was dressed in all black- black jeans, black knit hat, black boots, long-sleeved, black T-shirt, black thermal on top of it.
"I'm the dark night of the soul. Or a black hole. Or something like that," He'd said when I'd asked him earlier.
"You're copping out," I said.
"How is being in more than one costume copping out? I'm actually so investing in this, I am in an infinite number of costumes. It's meta and crap. — Meg Leder

What a brave privilege is it to be free from all contentions, from all envying or being envied, from receiving or paying all kinds of ceremonies! — Abraham Cowley

A day so happy. Fog lifted early. I worked in the garden. Hummingbirds were stopping over honeysuckle flowers. There was no thing on earth I wanted to possess. I know no one worth my envying him. — Czeslaw Milosz

Why waste your strength envying and hating instead of loving? — Lailah Gifty Akita

In pleasant peace and security
How suddenly the soul in a man begins to die
He shall look up above the stalled oxen
Envying the cruel falcon,
And dig under the straw for a stone
To bruise himself on. — Robinson Jeffers

The Astors and the Vanderbilts, their pleasure domes and money: she was sick of it. Sick of envying, sick of herself. She didn't understand antiques or architecture, she couldn't draw like Sylvia, she didn't read like Ted, she had few interests and no expertise. A paucity for love was the only true thing she'd ever had. — Jonathan Franzen

The applause we give those who are new to society often proceeds from a secret envying of those already established. — Francois De La Rochefoucauld

How much more proof does anyone need to see to know that there is more to GAIN from loving each other and being good to all people
than from hating and envying each other? When we continue to hate, we continue to LOSE. When we amplify mutual respect and LOVE, we have a lot to gain! Quite simply, there is more to gain through love than hate. — Suzy Kassem

Envying another's beauty will diminish your own. But when you praise beauty in others your own beauty deepens. — Daisaku Ikeda

INSECURITY breeds JEALOUSY / JEALOUSY creates ENVY / ENVY causes self-destruction / a hater is made up of all three. Just remember you are an opportunity away from being hated on yourself! — Carlos Wallace

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

Don't hate on someone whose hard work placed them on the road to success, while your envy and ill-intent put you on a path toward failure. — Carlos Wallace

It is a fact perhaps kept a little too much in the background, that mothers have a self larger than their maternity, and that when their sons have become taller than themselves, and are gone from them to college or into the world, there are wide spaces of their time which are not filled with praying for their boys, reading old letters, and envying yet blessing those who are attending to their shirt-buttons. — George Eliot

I said to myself: 'You mean all those people out there that I've been envying because they're not afraid to move ahead with their lives have really been afraid? Why didn't somebody tell me!?' I guess I never asked. — Susan Jeffers

I had considered envying men before
I pretend to envy things like their higher incidence of ungrounded confidence and monomania
but I don't really envy those things, and I'm not sure I even believe in them
but this, the covert-baby-having thing, was the first real thing. — Rivka Galchen

Perhaps that is the only cure for jealousy, to realize that the people we resent and envy for having what we lack, probably have wounds
and scars of their own. They may even be envying us. — Harold S. Kushner

I was beginning to see that Phineas could get away with anything. I couldn't help envying him that a little, which was perfectly normal. There was no harm in envying even your best friend a little — John Knowles