Quotations about Jealousy & Envy

Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run. ~George Bernard Shaw


In jealousy there is more self-love than love. ~François, Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims, 1665


Envy is a waste of time. ~Author Unknown


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


It is not love that is blind, but jealousy. ~Lawrence Durrell, Justine, 1957


If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang. ~Charley Reese


He that is not jealous is not in love. ~St. Augustine


The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves. ~William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693


Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. ~Josh Billings


Envy is the art of counting the other fellow's blessings instead of your own. ~Harold Coffin


Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies. ~Elizabeth Bowen


Envy is thin because it bites but never eats. ~Spanish Proverb


Calamities are of two kinds: misfortune to ourselves, and good fortune to others. ~Ambrose Bierce


Jealousy is simply and clearly the fear that you do not have value. Jealousy scans for evidence to prove the point - that others will be preferred and rewarded more than you. There is only one alternative - self-value. If you cannot love yourself, you will not believe that you are loved. You will always think it's a mistake or luck. Take your eyes off others and turn the scanner within. Find the seeds of your jealousy, clear the old voices and experiences. Put all the energy into building your personal and emotional security. Then you will be the one others envy, and you can remember the pain and reach out to them. ~Jennifer James


Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening. ~Maya Angelou


Jealousy is the great exaggerator. ~Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller, The Conspiracy of Fiesco, 1783


Jealousy and love are sisters. ~Russian Proverb


As iron is eaten by rust, so are the envious consumed by envy. ~Antisthenes


Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit. ~Mme. de Puixieux


Jealousy is the dragon in paradise; the hell of heaven; and the most bitter of the emotions because associated with the sweetest. ~A.R. Orage


Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love. ~George Eliot


[T]he ear of jealousy heareth all things. ~The Bible (Apocrypha), Wisdom of Solomon 1:10


Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it. ~Honore de Balzac



Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt. ~Terri Guillemets


Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy. ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld


Envy is ignorance. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


O jealousy! thou magnifier of trifles. ~Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller


Never love unless you can
Bear with all the faults of man:
Men will sometimes jealous be,
Though but little cause they see.
~Thomas Campion, "Never Love"


Every other sin hath some pleasure annexed to it, or will admit of an excuse: envy alone wants both. ~Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy


Trifles light as air
Are to the jealous confirmations strong
As proofs of holy writ.
~William Shakespeare, Othello


The jealous bring down the curse they fear upon their own heads. ~Dorothy Dix


Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead. ~Mark Twain


Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it. ~François Duc de La Rochefoucauld, Maxims


Whoever envies another confesses his superiority. ~Samuel Johnson, The Rambler


It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered. ~Aeschylus


O! beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock
The meat it feeds on.
~William Shakespeare, Othello


Envy is a symptom of lack of appreciation of our own uniqueness and self worth. Each of us has something to give that no one else has. ~Elizabeth O'Connor


Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks. ~Ovid


A show of envy is an insult to oneself. ~Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko


Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space feels itself excluded. ~William Hazlitt, Characteristics, 1823


Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits. ~Paul Eldridge


The truest mark of being born with great qualities is being born without envy. ~Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld


Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretense of keeping it alive. ~Havelock Ellis, On Life and Sex: Essays of Love and Virtue, 1937


Jealousy... is a mental cancer. ~B.C. Forbes


If envy were a fever, all the world would be ill. ~Danish Proverb


Envy slays itself by its own arrows. ~Author Unknown


And oft, my jealousy shapes faults that are not. ~William Shakespeare