Jealousy is a powerful emotion that can shape our relationships and perceptions in profound ways. Whether it sparks motivation or breeds insecurity, understanding jealousy through the words of others can offer valuable insights. In this collection, we've gathered 83 thought-provoking quotes that explore the many facets of jealousy, from its destructive nature to its role in personal growth. Dive in and discover perspectives that may help you navigate this complex feeling with greater awareness.
1. “The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.” - Salvador Dali
2. “O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mockThe meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'erWho dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!” - William Shakespeare
3. “Animals don't know as much about jealousy as people, but they're not ignorant of it, either.” - Stephen King
4. “Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive. ” - Havelock Ellis
5. “Love" is a that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own...Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy” - robert heinlein
6. “Back at home, after some prodding from Tereza, he admitted that he had been jealous watching her dance with a colleague of his. "You mean you were really jealous?" she asked him ten times or more, incredulously, as though someone had just informed her she had been awarded a Nobel Peace prize. Then she put her arm around his waist and began dancing across the room. The step she used was not the one she had shown off in the bar. It was more like a village polka, a wild romp that sent her legs flying in the air and her torso bounding all over the room, with Tomas in tow. Before long, unfortunately, she bagan to be jealous herself, and Tomas saw her jealously not as a Nobel Prize, but as a burden, a burden he would be saddled with until not long before his death.” - Milan Kundera
7. “The more you love,the more love you have to give.It's the only feeling we have which is infinite...” - Christina Westover
8. “So full of artless jealousy is guilt,It spills itself in fearing to be spilt.” - William Shakespeare
9. “Well, I'm so sorry that I can't be the right kind of monster for you, Bella.” - Stephenie Meyer
10. “Flailing and thrashing, Buttercup wept and tossed and paced and wept some more, and there have been three great cases of jealousy since David of Galilee was first afflicted with the emotion when he could no longer stand the fact that his neighbor Saul's cactus outshone his own. (Originally, jealousy pertained solely to plants, other people's cactus or ginkgoes, or, later, when there was grass, grass, which is why, even to this day, we say that someone is green with jealousy.) Buttercup's case rated a close fourth on the all-time list.It was a very long and very green night.” - William Goldman
11. “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.” - J.R. Ward
12. “What sort of love is permeated by jealousy? You are jealous because you are unaware that everything you need is inside you.” - Peter Deunov
13. “My eyes are green, Cause I eat a lot of vegetables,It don't have nothing to do with your new friend” - Erykah Badu
14. “Sir, I did not count your glasses of wine, why should you number up my cups of tea?” - Samuel Johnson
15. “Rising to her feet, she shot the Bird Man a furious glare, and then stormed off toward Savidlin's house. She was glad to be away from Richard, to be away from watching those girls pawing him.Her fingernails dug into her palms, but she didn't notice as she marched past the happy people. The dancers danced, the drummers drummed, the children laughed. People she passed wished her well. She wanted one of them to say something mean so she would have an excuse to hit someone.” - Terry Goodkind
16. “And yes, I’ll admit, I am jealous. I’m jealous of every minute you spend with him, of every concerned expression you send his way, of every tear shed, of every glance, every touch, and every thought. I want to rip him to pieces and purge him from your mind and from your heart. But I can’t.” - Colleen Houck
17. “Everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn' it?” - J.K. Rowling
18. “Jealousy isn't a pleasant quality, but if it isn't overdone (and if it's combined with modesty), apart from its inconvenience there's even something touching about it.” - Milan Kundera
19. “If the rest of them can survive only by destroying us, then why should we wish them to survive? . . . Nothing can make it moral to destroy the best. One can't be punished for being good. One can't be penalized for ability.” - Ayn Rand
20. “she shall scant show well that now shows best.” - William Shakespeare
21. “Modern Romans insisted that there was only one god, a notion that struck Alobar as comically simplistic. Worse, this Semitic deity was reputed to be jealous (what was there to be jealous of if there were no other gods?), vindictive, and altogether foul-tempered. If you didn't serve the nasty fellow, the Romans would burn your house down. If you did serve him, you were called a Christian and got to burn other people's houses down.” - Tom Robbins
22. “You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.” - Margaret Atwood
23. “You never felt jealousy, did you, Miss Eyre? Of course not: I need not ask you; because you never felt love. You have both sentiments yet to experience: your soul sleeps; the shock is yet to be given which shall waken it.” - Charlotte Brontë
24. “Because whipping an atlas at Jackson's head while he was flirt-touching that Frankie girl in geography would have been very satisfying. And beating him with the Eiffel Tower snowglobe while he kissed Cleo in French would have been tres cathartic. But she hadn't. Instead she'd been egg-like: a hard shell on the outside, and a runny mess on the inside.” - Lisi Harrison
25. “I dunno." She sat on the bench and hugged the robe like a pillow. "I still think that Brett guy is cute.""Good luck getting him away from Bekka." Cleo gathered her silky black hair into a high pony and pink-dabbed Smith's Rosebud Salve on her lips. "She's got more grip than Crazy Glue.""More cling than Saran Wrap," Lala added."More hold than Final Net." Cleo giggled."More possession than The Exorcist," Lala managed."More clench than butt cheeks," Blue chimed in."More competition than American Idol," Frankie stuck out her chest and showed them her diva booty roll.The girls burst out laughing."Nice!" Blue lifted her purple gloved hand.Frankie slapped it without a single spark."I hate to be a downer..." Claudine shuffled back into the conversation wearing her slippers and robe. "But that girl will destroy you if she catches you with Brett.""I'm not worried," Frankie tossed her hair back. "I've seen all the teen movies, and the nice girl gets the boy in the end.” - Lisi Harrison
26. “Is it my imagination, or is there some kind of jealousy thing going on here?"-Inuyasha (gives Inuyasha a really bad look)"It's your imagination."-Sango (Inuyasha tries to hide behind Kagome) "Whatever you say."-Kagome” - Rumiko Takahashi
27. “Marriage and its entourage of possession and jealousy enslave the spirit.” - Irvin D. Yalom
28. “You may think it all very fine, Mr. Huntingdon, to amuse yourself with rousing my jealousy; but take care you don't rouse my hate instead. And when you have once extinguished my love, you will find it no easy matter to kindle it again.” - Anne Brontë
29. “No,” he agreed. “You’re not. She never caused me this agony.”What could I say to that? The way he was looking at me was making my head feel funny. Was making me feel funny and not just in that oh God I just almost died way.Christophe leaned in. His mouth was a mere centimetres from me. “She never made me think I would die of heart failure. She never, never made me fear for her this way.” - Lili St. Crow
30. “Jealousy always trumps schadenfreude! It’s a rule from the heartbreak version of ‘rock, paper, scissors.” - Julie Klausner
31. “Meghan rose with the regal grace of a queen, calm and unruffled. I noticed she subtly moved in front of me when facing Ariella, a familiar gesture that caught me off guard. The Iron Queen was protecting me.” - Julie Kagawa
32. “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn't change the heart of others-- it only changes yours.” - Shannon Alder
33. “He who is jealous, is never jealous of what you see, with what is imagined is enough.” - Jacinto Benavente
34. “Envy is for people who don’t have the self-esteem to be jealous.” - Bauvard
35. “Dennis faced him. They glared at each other again. Neither said a word until Dennis set the glasses down, leaned back against the counter, and folded his arms over his chest. "You're an idiot." "Seems to be a common conclusion. You're not my favourite person right now either.” - Sloan Parker
36. “...there was a natural comorbidity between sexual appetite and sexual jealousy, between the desire to fuck and the desire to kill.” - M. Thomas Gammarino
37. “Most haters are stuck in a poisonous mental prison of jealousy and self-doubt that blinds them to their own potentiality.” - Steve Maraboli
38. “What was it about that short creature with her wild hair and spurious air of purity and why would anyone much less two men love her and to such disastrous ends.” - Anna Godbersen
39. “You could be David's friend too". She glanced at Tamani when he said nothing. He was frowning. "The two of you really have a lot in common, and we're all in this together".He shook his head. "It wouldn't work"."Why not? He's a nice guy. And it would do you good to have some human friends", she said hinting at what she suspected was the root of the problem. "It's not that", Tamani said, gesturing vaguely with one hand."Then why?" Laurel asked, exasperated."I just don't want to cosy up to the guy whose girl I have every intention of stealing” - Aprilynne Pike
40. “Kishan shook his head. 'I'm not going to let you hurt her.''Hurt her? I'm not going to harm her. You, on the other hand, I'm going to destroy.” - Colleen Houck
41. “There will always be someone willing to hurt you, put you down, gossip about you, belittle your accomplishments and judge your soul. It is a fact that we all must face. However, if you realize that God is a best friend that stands beside you when others cast stones you will never be afraid, never feel worthless and never feel alone.” - Shannon Alder
42. “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
43. “She sang, as requested. There was much about love in the ballad: faithful love that refused to abandon its object; love that disaster could not shake; love that, in calamity, waxed fonder, in poverty clung closer. The words were set to a fine old air -- in themselves they were simple and sweet: perhaps, when read, they wanted force; when well sung, they wanted nothing. Shirley sang them well: she breathed into the feeling, softness, she poured round the passion, force: her voice was fine that evening; its expression dramatic: she impressed all, and charmed one.On leaving the instrument, she went to the fire, and sat down on a seat -- semi-stool, semi-cushion: the ladies were round her -- none of them spoke. The Misses Sympson and the Misses Nunnely looked upon her, as quiet poultry might look on an egret, an ibis, or any other strange fowl. What made her sing so? They never sang so. Was it proper to sing with such expression, with such originality -- so unlike a school girl? Decidedly not: it was strange, it was unusual. What was strange must be wrong; what was unusual must be improper. Shirley was judged.” - Charlotte Brontë
44. “[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
45. “Jake's POV: It was just too bad that Chloe was freezing Ally out even though her family hadn't been affected. Because otherwise Ally would be here and maybe I could be making out with her instead of Lisa Freckles. Except that Ally would be making out with David Drake. Was that what they were doing right now? Hooking up at some party? Dorkus Drake got to kiss Ally Ryan whenever he wanted. In what universe was that okay?” - Kieran Scott
46. “When jealousy rears up, it indicates that something inside of you is afraid. It's an alarm, nothing less and nothing more. Treat it as such.” - Anthony D. Ravenscroft
47. “Earthquakes just happen. Tornadoes just happen. Your tongue does not just happen to fall into some other girls mouth!” - Gemma Halliday
48. “I couldn’t think of anyone I’d ever felt sorry for. There were plenty of kids I was envious of. There were others I achingly admired, but that might simply be another form of jealousy. Then there were those I feared, dreaded. And the worst of them, the man who shamed me. I could see my father’s angry features looming over my mother. I could clearly picture her beside him in his truck, cowering against the door while he belittled and assaulted her. I guess I did know someone I felt sorry for.” - Richelle E. Goodrich
49. “Then must you speakOf one that loved not wisely but too well,Of one not easily jealous but, being wrought,Perplexed in the extreme; of one whose hand,Like the base Indian, threw a pearl awayRicher than all his tribe; of one whose subdued eyes,Albeit unused to the melting mood,Drop tears as fast as the Arabian treesTheir medicinable gum. Set you down this,And say besides that in Aleppo once,Where a malignant and a turbaned TurkBeat a Venetian and traduced the state,I took by th' throat the circumcised dogAnd smote him thus.” - William Shakespeare
50. “Finally, Dageus finished, and she heard Gwen and Chloe say simultaneously, breathlessly, "Oh, my God."Gabby opened her eyes. Drustan had risen to his feet and was scowling, an expression mirrored by his twin. Both were glaring at Adam--whom they obviously could now see. Then at their wives, then back at Adam.” - Karen Marie Moning
51. “Wear that scarf," he said, pointing to a blue cashmere scarf hanging on a peg. "It matches your eyes."Alec looked at it. Suddenly he was filled with hate - for the scarf, for Magnus, and most of all for himself. "Don't tell me," he said. "The scarf's a hundred years old, and it was given to you by Queen Victoria right before she died, for special services to the Crown or something."Magnus sat up. "What's gotten into you?"Alec stared at him. "Am I the newest thing in this apartment?""I think that honor goes to Chairman Meow. He's only two.""I said newest, not youngest," Alec snapped.” - Cassandra Clare
52. “And I got out of there without punching anyone, kicking anyone, or breaking down in tears. Some days the small victories are all you achieve.” - Molly Ringle
53. “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” - Francois Duc de la Rochefoucauld
54. “If the enemy of my enemy is my friend, then a friend of my enemy, is my enemy.” - Pyreglide
55. “She was so beautiful tonight he knew he would die of it. He hated that anyone else should see it. He wished it were something he alone could see. And he knew he was alone, that nobody saw it but him. And he knew that everyone could see it. And still no one could but him.” - Patrick Holland
56. “I'm sorry,Lena” - Lauren Oliver
57. “Max.God, but she was stubborn. And tough. And closed in. Closed off. Except whenshe was holding Angel, or ruffling the Gasman’s hair, or pushing somethingcloser to Iggy’s hand so he could find it easily without knowing anyone hadhelped him. Or when she was trying to untangle Nudge’s mane of hair.Or-sometimes-when she was looking at Fang.He shifted on the hard ground, a half-dozen flashes of memory cyclingthrough his brain. Max looking at him and laughing. Max leaping off a cliff,snapping out her wings, flying off, so incredibly powerful and graceful thatit took his breath away.Max punching someone’s lights out, her face like stone.Max kissing that weiner Sam on Anne’s front porch.Gritting his teeth, Fang rolled onto his side.Max kissing him on the beach, after Ari had kicked Fang’s butt.Just now, her mouth soft under his.He wished she were here, if not next to him, then somewhere in the cave, sohe could hear her breathing.It was going to be hard to sleep without that tonight.” - James Patterson
58. “I won’t lie. I want to beat the hell out of any man who’s had you—you’d be smart to keep them the hell away from me—but nothing in your past can change how I feel about you.” - Sylvia Day
59. “Mary Fisher lives in a High Tower, on the edge of the sea: she writes a great deal about the nature of love. She tells lies.” - Faye Weldon
60. “As for Iago’s jealousy, one cannot believe that a seriously jealous man could behave towards his wife as Iago behaves towards Emilia, for the wife of a jealous husband is the first person to suffer. Not only is the relation of Iago and Emilia, as we see it on stage, without emotional tension, but also Emilia openly refers to a rumor of her infidelity as something already disposed of.Some such squire it wasThat turned your wit, the seamy side withoutAnd made you to suspect me with the Moor.At one point Iago states that, in order to revenge himself on Othello, he will not rest till he is even with him, wife for wife, but, in the play, no attempt at Desdemona’s seduction is made. Iago does not encourage Cassio to make one, and he even prevents Roderigo from getting anywhere near her.Finally, one who seriously desires personal revenge desires to reveal himself. The revenger’s greatest satisfaction is to be able to tell his victim to his face – "You thought you were all-powerful and untouchable and could injure me with impunity. Now you see that you were wrong. Perhaps you have forgotten what you did; let me have the pleasure of reminding you."When at the end of the play, Othello asks Iago in bewilderment why he has thus ensnared his soul and body, if his real motive were revenge for having been cuckolded or unjustly denied promotion, he could have said so, instead of refusing to explain.” - W.H. Auden
61. “He was jealous of her future, and she of his past.” - Anais Nin
62. “I like the sound of 'claps of no sound..” - Himanshu rathore
63. “She has that voraciousness about children. She swoops in on them. Even I, in public was a beloved child. She'd parade me into town, smiling and teasing me, tickling me as she spoke with people on the sidewalks. When we got home, she'd trail off to her room like an unfinished sentence, and I would sit outside with my face pressed against her door, and replay the day in my head, searching for clues to what I had done to displease her.I have one memory that catches in me like a nasty clump of blood. Marian was dead about two years, and my mother had a cluster of friends come over for afternoon drinks. For hours, the child was cooed over, smothered with red lipstick kisses, tidied up with tissues, then lipstick smacked again. I was suppose to be reading in my room, but I sat at the top of the stairs watching. My mother finally was handed the baby, and she cuddled it ferociously. Oh, how, wonderful it is to hold a baby again! Adora jiggled it on her knee, walked it around the rooms, whispered to it, and I looked down from above like a spiteful little god, the back of my hand placed against my face, imagining how it felt to be cheek to cheek with my mother.” - Gillian Flynn
64. “We like to stress the commonness of heroes. Essences seem undemocratic. We feel oppressed by the call to greatness. We regard an interest in glory or perfection as a sign of mental unhealthiness, and have decided that high achievers, who are called overachievers, owe their surplus ambition to a defect in mothering (either too little or too much). We want to admire but think we have a right not to be intimidated. We dislike feeling inferior to an ideal. So away with ideals, with essences. The only ideals allowed are healthy ones -- those everyone may aspire to, or comfortably imagine oneself possessing.” - Susan Sontag
65. “Rendall's first law of jealousy: jealousy does the cock harder and pussy wetter.” - Erica Jong
66. “Quando Odette deixasse de ser para ele uma criatura sempre ausente, cobiçada, imaginária, quando o sentimento que ele tinha por ela não fosse mais aquela mesma perturbação misteriosa que lhe causava a frase da sonata e sim afeto, reconhecimento, quando se estabelecessem entre ambos relações normais que poriam fim à loucura e à tristeza dele, então sem dúvida os atos da vida de Odette lhe pareceriam si mesmos pouco interessantes.” - Marcel Proust
67. “One day of happiness is worth more than a lifetime of sorrow .... Under ordinary circumstances, jealousy is a suspicion to the person who excites it and degrading to the person who indulges it.” - Victor Hugo
68. “...I don't want what other men see in you- you the you I want is invisible but it is the part of you I really love...” - John Geddes
69. “She had in truth no abstract propensity to malice: she did not dislike Lily because the latter was brilliant and predominant, but because she thought that Lily disliked her. It is less mortifying to believe one's self unpopular than insignificant, and vanity prefers to assume that indifference is a latent form of unfriendliness.” - Edith Wharton
70. “His veins were dark with a vivid belladonna tincture, the essence of jealousy.” - Charlotte Brontë
71. “Use your hater to make you greater!” - Habeeb Akande
72. “When criticism doesn't make sense, it is usually coming from a different place.” - Shannon L. Alder
73. “Cruel people offer pity when they no longer feel threatened. However, kind people offer compassion and understanding regardless.” - Shannon L. Alder
74. “I love being in love, but I also love other things, like not being jealous, overly sensitive, or needy. ” - Dark Jar Tin Zoo
75. “A coward talks to everyone but YOU.” - Shannon L. Alder
76. “Envy is a buzz killer."~R. Alan Woods [2013]” - R. Alan Woods
77. “Los celos hacen que las personas hagan y digan cosas estúpidas” - Richelle Mead
78. “The jealousy and evilness are like worms, that destroy the soul.” - Radostin Chernev
79. “God is always trying to give blessings to us, but our minds are usually too full to receive them.” - Shannon L. Alder
80. “There is a sort of jealousy which needs very little fire: it is hardly a passion, but a blight bred in the cloudy, damp despondency of uneasy egoism.” - George Eliot
81. “Expect while reaching for the stars, people to whirl by with their dark clouds and storm upon you.” - Anthony Liccione
82. “I am jealous of anyone who can make other people care so much.” - David Levithan
83. “In the closed world of the gynaeceum, despite the gardens and parkland extending beyong the horizon, despite the insurmountable walls separating pavillions and palaces, the tangled web of our fate was inescapable. Why did these women love each other to the point of madness? Why did they loathe one another so vehemently, and why did sworn enemies feel such horror and fascination for one another? Why should furious hate become obsession, then intoxication and the very reason to live?Because love and hate were the two heads of the demon.” - Shan Sa
