“Envy and resentment are terribly corrosive passions. To suffer at the sight or even the thought of others' enjoyment of life makes one a committed enemy of human happiness. Such people end up being practically a curse upon the human race. They vandalize life, exerting themselves not in the pursuit of gain or pleasure, but to hinder others' enjoyment.”

“The secret to life is to enjoy the pleasure of being terribly, terribly deceived.”

“Either it's a bad thing to enjoy life, in other words, to experience pleasure - in which case you shouldn't help anyone to do it, but should try to save the whole human race from such a frightful fate - or else, if it's good for other people, and you're not only allowed, but positively obliged to make it possible for them, why shouldn't charity begin at home?”

“One of the pleasures of being a gardener comes from the enjoyment you get looking at other people's yards.”

“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.”

“Human beings -- human children especially -- seldom deny themselves the pleasure of exercising a power which they are conscious of possessing, even though that power consist only in a capacity to make others wretched”