Envy Quotes - Page 36

• If the grass is greener on the other side of the fence, you can bet the water bill is higher.

  Debbie Macomber

  Water, Grass Is Greener On The Other Side, Bills

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• We are the wise. Do not envy us— We who are too wise to draw near the fire Lest we get burned; We who are too wise to love Lest love should vanish and we be hurt. We are the wise. Do not envy us our wisdom— We who are too wise to live Lest we should die.

  Lois Duncan

  Wise, Hurt, Fire

  Lois Duncan, Rudy Gutierrez (1999). “Trapped!: Cages of Mind and Body”, Simon Pulse

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• Seeing a patter doesn't mean you know how to put it all together. Take baby steps: don't focus on the folks whose skills are far beyond your own. When you're new to something-or you haven't tried it in a while-it can feel impossibly hard to get it right. Every misstep feels like a reason to quit. You envy everyone else who seems to know what they're doing. What keeps you going? The belief that one day you'll also be like that: Elegant. Capable. Confident. Experienced. And you can be. All you need now is enthusiasm. A little bravery. And-always-a sense of humor.

  Kate Jacobs

  Baby, Mean, Skills

  Kate Jacobs (2008). “Knit Two”, p.6, Penguin

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• We're all one thing, like cells in a body. 'Cept we can't see the body. The way fish can't see the ocean. And so we envy each other. Hurt each other. Hate each other. How silly is that? A heart cell hating a lung cell.

  Charlie Kaufman

  Hurt, Hate, Ocean

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• The idea of equality is a by-product of the sentiment of envy. Since it must always prove beyond human ower to raise the inferior mass to a superior stratum, apostles of equality must ever be inferiors seeking to reduce their betters to their level. It follows that a nation that once admits this doctrine of equality will be dragged by it to the level, moral, intelletual and political, of its most worthless class.

  Rafael Sabatini

  Class, Ideas, Political

  Rafael Sabatini (2016). “Delphi Complete Works of Rafael Sabatini (Illustrated)”, p.5085, Delphi Classics

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• People destroy beauty when they find it. (Acheron) How so? (Artemis) By nature, people are petty and jealous. They envy what they lack and because they don’t know how to acquire something, they try to destroy anyone who has it. Beauty is one of those things they hate most in others. (Acheron)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Hate, Jealous, People

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• I envy the music lovers hear. I see them walking hand in hand, standing close to each other in a queue at a theater or subway station, heads touching while they sit on a park bench, and I ache to hear the song that plays between them: The stirring chords of romance's first bloom, the stately airs that whisper between a couple long in love. You can see it in the way they look at each other... you can almost hear it. Almost, but not quite, because the music belongs to them and all you can have of it is a vague echo that rises up from the bittersweet murmur and shuffle of your own memories.

  Charles de Lint

  Song, Couple, Memories

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• Knot the tie and go to work, unknot the tie and go to sleep. I sleep. I dream. I wake. I sing. I get out the hammer and start knocking in the wooden pegs that affix the meaning to the landscape, the inner life to the body, the names to the things. I float too much to wander, like you, in the real world. I envy it but that’s the dealio—you’re a train and I’m a trainstation and when I try to guess your trajectory I end up telling my own story.

  Richard Siken

  Dream, Real, Sleep

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• Since when does a dog care about what it humps? (Dev) I could go so low with that that even the gutter would envy us, but…I know what you’re trying to do. You’re trying to provoke a fight with me so that you can legally turn me away. I really, really want to give you that fight, too, but I have to see Sasha and it can’t wait. Sorry. We’ll have to hump and fight later. (Fury)

  Sherrilyn Kenyon

  Dog, Sorry, Fighting

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• And what, you ask, does writing teach us? First and foremost, it reminds us that we are alive and that it is gift and a privilege, not a right. We must earn life once it has been awarded us. Life asks for rewards back because it has favored us with animation. So while our art cannot, as we wish it could, save us from wars, privation, envy, greed, old age, or death, it can revitalize us amidst it all.

  Ray Bradbury

  Art, War, Writing

  FaceBook post by Ray Bradbury from Aug 27, 2014

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• Happiness consists not of having, but of being; not of possessing, but of enjoying. It is a warm glow of the heart at peace with itself. A martyr at the stake may have happiness that a king on his throne might envy. Man is the creator of his own happiness. It is the aroma of life, lived in harmony with high ideals. For what a man has he may be dependent upon others; what he is rests with him alone.

  David O. McKay

  Kings, Heart, Character

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• I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.

  Holly Black

  Hate, Corny

  Holly Black (2013). “The Poison Eaters: and Other Stories”, p.178, Small Beer Press

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• Even in those cities which seem to enjoy the blessings of peace, and where the arts florish, the inhabitants are devoured by envy, cares and anxieties, which are greater plagues than any expirienced in a town when it is under siege.

  Voltaire

  Art, Blessing, Cities

  "Candide, Or, Optimism". Book by Voltaire, 1759.

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• I will tell you a little secret about archaeologists, dear Reader. They all pretend t be very high-minded. They claim that their sole aim in excavation is to uncover the mysteries of the past and add to the store of human knowledge. They lie. What they really want is a spectacular discovery, so they can get their names in the newspapers and inspire envy and hatred in the hearts of their rivals.

  Barbara Mertz

  Lying, Heart, Past

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• ...she wasn't reading Deathly Hallows at all. Her book wasn't orange but rose and water and sand, and featured a kid on a broomstick and white unicorn. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone. She didn't notice me staring at her. 'Oh, I envy you,' I thought, but was smiling for her. She had just begun.

  Melissa Anelli

  Book, Reading, Kids

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• Mortals. I envy you. You think you can change things. Stop the universe. Undo what was done long before you came along. You are such beautiful creatures.

  Kami Garcia

  Beautiful, Thinking, Long

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• Sometimes I envy religious people for the comfort of believing. It would make everything so much easier.

  Peter Cameron

  Religious, Believe, People

  Peter Cameron (2009). “Someday This Pain Will Be Useful to You: A Novel”, p.128, Macmillan

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• The masses do not like those who surpass them in any regard. The average man envies and hates those who are different.

  Ludwig von Mises

  Hate, Men, Average

  Ludwig Von Mises (1962). “The Ultimate Foundation of Economic Science: An Essay on Method”

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• Not a single thought managed to take shape in her mind: for the likeness of this day to the last seemed to her the clearest proof that it would be another quite useless day, a day she would gladly have done without. For a moment she thought that a day like this would be pointless for anyone on earth, then abruptly changed her mind as she realised that thousands of women, after a hard week's work, or a family quarrel, or even just after catching a cold, would envy her just for having the leisure to rest in comfort.

  Ismail Kadaré

  Days Like This, Mind, Comfort

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• In the end, therefore, money will be the one thing people will desire, which is moreover only representative, an abstraction. Nowadays a young man hardly envies anyone his gifts, his art, the love of a beautiful girl, or his fame; he only envies him his money. Give me money, he will say, and I am saved...He would die with nothing to reproach himself with, and under the impression that if only he had had the money he might really have lived and might even have achieved something great.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Beautiful, Girl, Art

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• Wherever there is great property there is great inequality. For one very rich man there must be at least five hundred poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many. The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions.

  Adam Smith

  Men, Want, Affluence

  Adam Smith (1809). “An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”, p.95

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• Chronocanine Envy: Sadness experienced when one realized that, unlike one's dog, one cannot live only in the present tense. As Kierkegaard said, "Life must be lived forward.

  Douglas Coupland

  Dog, Sadness, Said Life

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• Sadly for my wedding plans, I learned that Nestor is a bardash. I envy the men who enjoy his favors. He has always treated me with friendship which I now value more than my old romantic feelings.

  Tamora Pierce

  Disappointment, Feelings, Favors

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• Envy was just the tax you paid on success.

  David Nicholls

  Success, Taxes, Paid

  David Nicholls (2011). “One Day”, p.172, Hachette UK

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• Your body is woven from the light of heaven. Are you aware that its purity and swiftness is the envy of angels and its courage keeps even devils away.

  Rumi

  Angel, Light, Heaven

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