48 Envy-Inspiring Quotes

In a world where social media feeds are often flooded with highlight reels and picture-perfect moments, the emotion of envy can easily creep into our lives. While it's natural to occasionally feel a twinge of jealousy, how we channel that feeling can make all the difference. Whether it's about finding inspiration in others' successes or turning envy into a catalyst for self-improvement, our curated collection of 48 envy-inspiring quotes is here to elevate your mindset. Dive in, reflect, and let these powerful words reshape the way you perceive envy and ambition.

1. “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” - Malachy McCourt

2. “Years from now, when I'm successful and happy, ...and he's in prison... I hope I'm not too mature to gloat.” - Bill Watterson

3. “Along with the idea of romantic love, she was introduced to another--physical beauty. Probably the most destructive ideas in the history of human thought. Both originated in envy, thrived in insecurity, and ended in disillusion.” - Toni Morrison

4. “I wanted what women always want: permission. But he'd had that before this book was even written; it was, after all, the first thing I'd envied about him. It was arguably what enabled him to write the book in the first place. ("Envy")” - Kathryn Chetkovich

5. “Nothing in the world is worth having or worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty… I have never in my life envied a human being who led an easy life. I have envied a great many people who led difficult lives and led them well.” - Theodore Roosevelt

6. “The Number our envious Persons, confirmation our capability.” - Oscar Wilde

7. “Envy, after all, comes from wanting something that isn't yours. But grief comes from losing something you've already had.” - Jodi Picoult

8. “He was a mystery to her, and every time she tried to solve him it caused her a little more pain. But when she tired to give him up he pursued her in her thoughts, stronger each time.” - Anna Godbersen

9. “Rena noticed me watching it pass. 'You think they don't got problem?' Rena said. 'Everybody got problem. You got me, they got insurance, house payment, Preparation H.' She smiled, baring the part between her two upper teeth. 'We are the free birds. They want to be us.” - Janet Fitch

10. “I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.” - Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

11. “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

12. “They'll either want to kill you, kiss you, or be you.” - Suzanne Collins

13. “Heart-stopping envy is the sincerest form of flattery.” - Anna Godbersen

14. “Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.” - John Berger

15. “A poet should be so crafty with words that he is envied even for his pains.” - Criss Jami

16. “Don't envy those who seems having everything, they don't really have everything. They have what they want and live the life they want but they don't have what they really need.” - Ann Marie Aguilar

17. “The motive behind criticism often determines its validity. Those who care criticize where necessary. Those who envy criticize the moment they think that they have found a weak spot.” - Criss Jami

18. “Love begets wisdom, thus it is, as often misconceived, more than vain layers of tenderness; it is inherently rational and comprehensive of the problem within the problem: for instance, envy is one of the most excused sins in the media of political correctness. Those you find most attractive, or seem to have it all, are often some of the most insecure at heart, and that is because people assume that they do not need anything but defamation.” - Criss Jami

19. “The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.” - Criss Jami

20. “Creative people are often found either disagreeable or intimidating by mediocrities.” - Criss Jami

21. “There is not a passion so strongly rooted in the human heart as envy.” - Richard Brinsley Sheridan

22. “Envy nobody. It is the true secret of happiness, or at least the only one I know. (By Moonlight)” - Peter S. Beagle

23. “He had been dazzled. Because of the dazzling brightness, he had had to kill [Seigen]. All who had encountered Seigen had had their hearts stolen by that brightness. That envy had turned to malice.” - Takayuki Yamaguchi

24. “[M]en, though they know full well how much women are worth and how great the benefits we bring them, nonetheless seek to destroy us out of envy for our merits. It's just like the crow, when it produces white nestlings: it is so stricken by envy, knowing how black it is itself, that it kills its own offspring out of pique.” - Moderata Fonte

25. “When you're and only child in a family with an only parent, you look at other, bigger families with envy. Mary Alice had a family with a station wagon, a split-level house, and a pool. But then I looked up and saw Mary Alice's toes, as she stood at the edged of the diving board. Her second toe lay on top of her big toe on each foot. I had never seen such a thing. I wondered if Mary Alice's toes would ever prevent her from doing the things she wanted to do in life. "Look, y'all!" she said, forming her perfect body into a perfect swan's dive. I decided then that any time I got frustrated with my overall situation in life, mad or jealous of knee socks or a pink canopy bed in a pink room, I'd take a deep breath and think about Mary Alice's toes. At least I didn't have Mary Alice's toes.” - Margaret McMullan

26. “The bittersweet about truth is that nothing could be more hurtful, yet nothing could be more helpful.” - Mike Norton

27. “When I envied a man's spurs then they were indeed worth coveting.” - Zane Grey

28. “When I realize that God makes his gifts fit each person, there's no way I can covet what you got because it just wouldn't fit me.” - William P. Smith

29. “To all apparent beauties blind, each blemish strikes an envious mind.” - Benjamin Franklin

30. “You can feel anything. All is free for you to feel. But I guarantee you that if you allow yourself to feel envy and then to swim in it, that envy will destroy you and the people around you. Envy is unlike anger. Envy is not a right wing nor a left wing, it is not on either end of the balancing beam. Nobody needs it and I can assure you that once you give yourself to it, you will be eaten up. Envy can even eat up nations, casting them up against each other and pull a whole nation down into an internal collapse.” - C. JoyBell C.

31. “If you walk on sunlight, bathe in moonlight, breathe in a golden air and exhale a Midas' touch; mark my words, those who exist in the shadows will try to pull you into the darkness with them. The last thing that they want is for you to see the wonder of your life because they can't see theirs.” - C. JoyBell C.

32. “If you swim effortlessly in the deep oceans, ride the waves to and from the shore, if you can breathe under water and dine on the deep treasures of the seas; mark my words, those who dwell on the rocks carrying nets will try to reel you into their catch. The last thing they want is for you to thrive in your habitat because they stand in their atmosphere where they beg and gasp for some air.” - C. JoyBell C.

33. “There is a magnificent, beautiful, wonderful painting in front of you! It is intricate, detailed, a painstaking labor of devotion and love! The colors are like no other, they swim and leap, they trickle and embellish! And yet you choose to fixate your eyes on the small fly which has landed on it! Why do you do such a thing?” - C. JoyBell C.

34. “Oui, c'est votre idée, à vous tous, les ouvriers français, déterrer un trésor, pour le manger seul ensuite, dans un coin d'égoïsme et de fainéantise. Vous avez beau crier contre les riches, le courage vous manque de rendre aux pauvres l'argent que la fortune vous envoie... Jamais vous ne serez dignes du bonheur, tant que vous aurez quelque chose à vous, et que votre haine des bourgeois viendra uniquement de votre besoin enragé d'être des bourgeois à leur place.” - Émile Zola

35. “Whatever worldly thing we may covet - zealously striving to obtain and then retain - never seems to bring an end to our desires. Covetousness, envy, jealousy, and greed always escalate into a vicious spiral, as we seek greater and greater gratification but find less and less contentment. . . . Striving to acquire the things of the world not only does not bring lasting happiness and peace, but it drives us to seek more. When "all we've ever wanted" is grounded in the temporal trappings of this world, it is never enough!” - Brent Top

36. “I'm not equipped to handle what she has, both good and bad and what she has is always a package deal of both. In other words, I've been assigned a load I can handle.” - Lysa Terheurst

37. “You just know something is amiss, when you look at someone and long for something that is not yours or you cannot have. It's an absence--a loss of a heartbeat.” - Nadège Richards

38. “The way you think about yourself determines your reality. You are not being hurt by the way people think about you. Many of those people are a reflection of how you think about yourself.” - Shannon L. Alder

39. “Antonia was very conscious of the corrosive power of envy and felt that it was this emotion, more than any other, which lay behind human unhappiness. People did not realise how widespread envy was.” - Alexander McCall Smith

40. “When emerging from humble beginnings, those around you tend to underestimate your authenticity because they knew you before you were 'somebody'.” - Criss Jami

41. “M. Proust was more severe than M. de Caillavet on Anatole France: "He was selfish and supercilious. He had read so much that he had left his heart in other people's books, and all that remained was dryness. One day I asked him how he came to know so much. He said, 'Not by being such a handsome young man as you. I wasn't in demand, and instead of going out I studied and learned'.” - Céleste Albaret

42. “What kind of plan B?" Hale asked. He was almost holding his breath when a voice answered, "My kind." Macey tried to read the look on his face then, but it was gone in a flash. It had been a simple moment of peace and joy and pure happiness. That voice made Hale happy. It kept him calm. It was his backup and his conscience. Macey couldn't help herself, she envied him.” - Ally Carter

43. “I was just thinking... how it is not and it will never be okay to cause pain in someone's life just because of the fact that you are envious of them! Is someone taller than you? Richer than you? More beautiful? That doesn't make it okay to hurt those people, for all you know, they bear deep wounds and carry heavy burdens and their heartache is far greater than anything you could ever bear! People try to hurt people that they're envious of, without knowing that they are adding to what is already painful. And because someone has more than you or has what it is that you want, doesn't mean that they owe you anything! It's not their fault! Be careful, you may just be wounding an angel soul, and a wound inflicted upon an angel soul, will always, always come back to haunt- YOU.” - C. JoyBell C.

44. “I wish to live without hate, whim, jealousy, envy, and fear. I wish to be simple, honest, frank, natural . . to face any obstacle and meet every difficulty unabashed and unafraid.” - Elbert Hubbard

45. “The ultimate goal of the arriviste’s aspirations is not to acquire a thing of value, but to be more highly esteemed than others. He merely uses the “thing” as an indifferent occasion for overcoming the oppressive feeling of inferiority which results from his constant comparisons.” - Max Scheler

46. “I am Envy...I cannot read and therefore wish all books burned.” - Christopher Marlowe

47. “Envy suggests inferiority.” - Wayne Gerard Trotman

48. “It does wonders for my own psyche to turn envy into inspiration. No matter how successful we become, we're never above that.” - Hillman Curtis