Quotes About Envy

Progressive thievery is thievery of a special sort, thievery that marches behind the banner of justice. In one of his other books, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Nietzsche writes that for the avengers, justice is a camouflage for envy and revenge; these are "tyrants who shroud themselves in words of virtue.

Feeling like what, Cassandra Mortmain? Flat? Depressed? Empty? If so, why, pray? I thought if I made myself write I should find out what is wrong with me, but I haven't, so far. Unless — could I possibly be jealous of Rose? I will pause and search my innermost soul . . . I have searched it for a solid five minutes. And I swear I am not jealous of Rose; [..]

When a writer doesn't show his face, he becomes a local symptom of God's famous reluctance to appear. We're all drawn to remoteness. A hard-to-reach place is necessarily beautiful. Beautiful and a little sacred, maybe. And a person who becomes inaccessible has a grace and wholeness the rest of us envy.

I liked being with Wilder. The world was a series of fleeting gratifications. He took what he could, then immediately forgot it in the rush of a subsequent pleasure. It was this forgetfulness I envied and admired.

If each of us is the center of his or her existence, Orest seemed intent on enlarging the center, making it everything. Is this what athletes do, occupy the self more fully? It's possible we envy them for a prowess that has little to do with sport. In building toward a danger, they escape it in some deeper sense, the dwell in some angelic scan, able to leap free of everyday dying.

Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistable urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.

Have you ever given someone a book you enjoyed enormously, with a feeling of envy because they were about to read it for the first time, an experience you could never have again?

Each time I read a book, I cataloged the parts that struck me dumb with envy and admiration for their beauty and power and truth.

Somebody asked me once how I felt about all that," Bird said. "I told them, 'Hell, I'm jealous of them too. I'm jealous because I never got to play with a Larry Bird.

Their chairs were huge and soft, the kind that swivel and make squelching noises whenever you shift your behind. Aunt Isabelle and I had regular, hard-backed chairs. So at first, I didn't concentrate on what the lawyers were saying because I felt too angry about this. Why didn't we have the soft, fun, swivelling chairs?

I swallowed at once envying and adoring all the ways in which the word lovely could refer to my mother. So strange still, how different we were.

God is growing bitter, He envies man his mortality.

Even though his sister was five years older, Jack couldn't help feeling jealous. Becca's skills were so impressive that coaches had moved her to the boys' team. Yes, Jack, often said, Becca's my sister. Yes, she plays hockey on the boys' team. For some reason, Jack usually had to give the info twice. Yes, she's my sister. Yes, she plays for the boys team.

He wanted to make a copy to send back to his sister – the one who'd been smart enough to finish college and was working for Weyland-Yutani as a forensic xenobiologist. She made disgustingly good money. Still, he got laid a lot more often. It was all a matter of perspective.

The poet with hair down his shoulders, whom the streets call after on his way, is endued with a kind of daring that many a brave general might envy.

She turns around. Nice ass. Bad, too. Please let me some day kick as much of it as she does.

There are some people men and women both who will never be happy no matter what the circumstances they find themselves. There's not enough money, no Castle grand enough, no life easy enough to content them.

Services rendered to a country in a diplomatic line can be known only to a few – if they are important and they become conspicuous they rather excite envy than gratitude.

We all desperately want something that we see the Lord giving to other women. We see Him blessing them in the very areas He's withholding from us. And while these other women may not be obnoxious like Peninnah in their reminders of their blessing and our lack, it's increasingly painful each time we see a reminder. We look at them, and we feel set aside.

But if you harbor bitter envy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast about it or deny the truth. Such "wisdom" does not come down from heaven but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. For where you have envy and selfish ambition, there you find disorder and every evil practice. (James 3:14 – 16)

comparison steals celebration. And a life void of celebration is a life empty.

We get empty when we park our minds on comparison thoughts and wallow in them.

Respect for the rights of others is a lofty principle; but envy is a primal urge (p114)

The rosy gleam of his lip, the fevered gleam of his eyes. There was not a line anywhere on his face, nothing creased or graying; all crisp. He was spring, golden and bright. Envious death would drink his blood, and grow young again.