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Jealousy Quotes

Shakespeare leads by a long way, followed by Giannina Braschi, Horace, Seneca and La Rochefoucauld. George Eliot’s The Mill on the Floss (1860) is the best-sourced writer here, with two lines: anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love, and jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart. Leonardo’s notebooks say envy wounds with false accusations.

Two entries are flagged misattributed. “The living will envy the dead” is credited to Nikita Khrushchev, and a remark that we are all clever enough at envying a famous man while he is alive and praising him when he is dead is credited to Mimnermus.

Random quote on Jealousy

Most quoted on jealousy:

The eradiction of envy: gratitude.

Giannina Braschi United States of Banana (2011)

Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise.
For envy is a kind of praise.

John Gay Fables (1727)

Merely pointing to the fact that some people have a lot more than others is less compelling as a critique; it invites the response “So what? Those who have more aren’t hurting anybody; you’re just appealing to envy.” By contrast, being able to show that those who enjoy a higher socioeconomic status have to a considerable extent achieved and maintained that status by forcibly expropriating and oppressing the less affluent provides for a far more effective indictment.

Roderick Long Left-libertarianism, market anarchism, class conflict and historical theories of distributive justice (2012)

I am firmly convinced, as I have already said, that to effect any great social improvement, it is sympathy rather than self-interest, the sense of duty rather than the desire for self-advancement, that must be appealed to.

Henry George Social Problems (1883)

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.

William Shakespeare

To all my foes, dear Fortune, send
Thy gifts, but never to my friend:
I tamely can endure the first,
But this with envy makes me burst.

Jonathan Swift Verses on the Death of Doctor Swift (1731)

Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse; envy alone wants both. Other sins last but for awhile; the gut may be satisfied, anger remits, hatred hath an end, envy never ceaseth.

Robert Burton The Anatomy of Melancholy (1621)

Base Envy withers at another’s joy,
And hates that excellence it cannot reach.

James Thomson The Seasons (1726)

Though I perchance am vicious in my guess,
As, I confess, it is my nature's plague
To spy into abuses, and oft my jealousy
Shapes faults that are not.

William Shakespeare Othello (1603)

If I shall be condemn'd
Upon surmises, all proofs sleeping else
But what your jealousies awake, I tell you,
'Tis rigour, and not law.

William Shakespeare

Envy is more implacable than hatred.

François de La Rochefoucauld

Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon,
Who is already sick and pale with grief,
That thou her maid art far more fair than she:
Be not her maid, since she is envious.

William Shakespeare Romeo and Juliet (1597)

Jealousy: Let it go; results could be tragic.

Eve

Can't I another's face commend,
Or to her virtues be a friend,
But instantly your forehead louers,
As if her merit lessen'd yours?

Edward Moore

But through the heart
Should Jealousy its venom once diffuse,
'Tis then delightful misery no more,
But agony unmix'd, incessant gall,
Corroding every thought, and blasting all
Love's paradise.

James Thomson

O jealousy,
Thou ugliest fiend of hell! thy deadly venom
Preys on my vitals, turns the healthful hue
Of my fresh cheek to haggard sallowness,
And drinks my spirit up!

Hannah More

Égalité is an expression of envy. It means, in the real heart of every Republican, " No one shall be better off than I am;" and while this is preferred to good government, good government is impossible.

Alexis de Tocqueville

O jealousy! thou magnifier of trifles.

Friedrich Schiller

Jealousy. The person who hasn't felt it cannot know how much it hurts, or imagine the madness committed in its name. (p368)

Isabel Allende Portrait in Sepia (2000)

The general's disdain'd
By him one step below; he by the next;
That next by him beneath; so every step,
Exampled by the first pace that is sick
Of his superior, grows to an envious fever
Of pale and bloodless emulation.

William Shakespeare Troilus and Cressida (1602)

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