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According to a study conducted by researchers from Universidad de Zaragoza in Spain, envy is the most prevalent basic personality trait shaping human behavior that is present in almost one-third of the population. In the same study, researchers found that 90% of the population can be divided into four main personality traits: optimistic, pessimistic, trusting, and envious. And guess what, the largest proportion (30%) turned out to be "envious." Although more studies would be required to support these findings, the truth is obvious - everyone has felt envy or jealousy at some point in their lives. However, some cope with these toxic feelings better than others.
That may be envy over someone who gets to go on holiday twice per year, perhaps someone is jealous that one grew up with both parents, or jealous because someone got to eat three times today, not just once. And to be fair, all these reasons are valid. However, envy is not an emotion one should feed off of to gain motivation. It's a negative emotion that only draws hatred. It doesn't inspire nor motivate us to strive for any good.
If you are someone who is struggling to deal with negative emotions, quotes about jealousy and envy can lead you on the right path. Reading through some wise words and inspiring quotes really can make a difference. It's all about how we react and perceive things. Someone having something better than you or living a presumably better life shouldn't make you envy or even hate them.
Often, envy and jealousy are rooted in low self-confidence and unresolved past issues. The many envy quotes and quotes about jealousy condemn these emotions, with some even referring to them as "diseases." Although entirely natural and often detected unintentionally, this germ that is jealousy and envy should be shooed away and not allowed to spread.
Below, we've gathered some inspiring words from many sage individuals, as well as quotes on jealousy and the essence of envy. Let us know if any of the quotes about envy reached the deepest chambers of your heart.
"Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life; they're big, flashing signs that something needs to change." — Gretchen Rubin
"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us - avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace." — Petrarch
"People who make the choice to study, work hard or do whatever they endeavor is to give it the max on themselves to reach to the top level. And you have the people who get envy and jealousy, yet are not willing to put that work in, and they want to get the same praise." — Evander Holyfield
"Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbor to have them through envy." — Aristotle
"We are always trying to become something else. We are always trying to become noble, to become a hero, an example, an ideal; and if we really go behind this urge to become, we will find that there is envy and that behind that envy there is fear, the fear of what one is." — Jiddu Krishnamurti
"Five enemies of peace inhabit with us – avarice, ambition, envy, anger, and pride; if these were to be banished, we should infallibly enjoy perpetual peace." — Petrarch
"Maybe jealousy and envy would fade if we knew the full story behind success. Maybe we would be less likely to put people on a pedestal." — James Clear
"Success makes so many people hate you. I wish it wasn't that way. It would be wonderful to enjoy success without seeing envy in the eyes of those around you." — Marilyn Monroe
"We need criminals to identify ourselves with, to secretly envy and to stoutly punish. They do for us the forbidden, illegal things we wish to do." — Karl A. Menninger
"Envy, propelled by fear, can be even more toxic than anger because it involves the thought that other people enjoy the good things of life which the envier can't hope to attain through hard work and emulation." — Martha Nussbaum
"Everybody knows someone like that: wonderful, attractive people full of passion and ideals. You envy them, but you know there's a dark side, which is brutal and cruel and violent. That dark side informs what's wonderful about them, and the passion and rage inform the darkness; they're inseparable." — David Thewlis
"Why would you envy a man who doesn't know the names of all the planets, is a 'high functioning' sociopath and has no friends? Because Sherlock Holmes thinks in all the ways we wish we could." — Kyle Hill
"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
"Blessed is he who has learned to admire but not envy, to follow but not imitate, to praise but not flatter, and to lead but not manipulate." — William Arthur Ward
"The company of certain people may excite our generosity and sensitivity, while that of others awakens our competitiveness and envy." — Alain de Botton
"For most of us, envy is the basis of our actions; remove envy and we feel we are lost. All our effort is towards success, and in that there is envy; behind that envy there is fear." — Jiddu Krishnamurti
"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy – I don’t disparage envy, but I don’t accept it as legitimately my master." — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"Envy, like the worm, never runs but to the fairest fruit; like a cunning bloodhound, it singles out the fattest deer in the flock." — Francis Beaumont
"Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery" — Winston Churchill
"Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy." — Aristotle
"I do not like to work with patients who are in love. Perhaps it is because of envy — I, too, crave enchantment. Perhaps it is because love and psychotherapy are fundamentally incompatible. The good therapist fights darkness and seeks illumination, while romantic love is sustained by mystery and crumbles upon inspection." — Irvin D. Yalom
"A person is born with feelings of envy and hate. If he gives way to them, they will lead him to violence and crime, and any sense of loyalty and good faith will be abandoned." — Xun Kuang
"I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy - I don't disparage envy, but I don't accept it as legitimately my master." — Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
"When I went to Philadelphia I was 26 years old and really sitting on top of the world. Family life, a professional career, plenty of friends and associates, and a good reputation, a wish list that could be the envy of many." — Julius Erving
"Envy among other ingredients has a mixture of the love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune." — William Hazlitt
"Men, 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." — Moderata Fonte
"When you show yourself to the world and display your talents, you naturally stir all kinds of resentment, envy, and other manifestations of insecurity… you cannot spend your life worrying about the petty feelings of others." — Robert Greene
"Religion is meant to teach us true spiritual human character. It is meant for self-transformation. It is meant to transform anxiety into peace, arrogance into humility, envy into compassion, to awaken the pure soul in man and his love for the Source, which is God." — Radhanath Swami
"I know that a man who shows me his wealth is like the beggar who shows me his poverty; they are both looking for alms from me, the rich man for the alms of my envy, the poor man for the alms of my guilt." — Ben Hecht
"There are people who have never been taught anything and know everything, have never been anywhere, and understand everything, have never given a moment's thought to anything, and comprehend everything. 'Blessed hands' is the name bestowed on these fortunate beings. The world envies, honors and respects them." — Sholom Aleichem
"There is perhaps no phenomenon which contains so much destructive feeling as moral indignation, which permits envy or hate to be acted out under the guise of virtue." — Erich Fromm
"The affluence of the rich excites the indignation of the poor, who are often both driven by want, and prompted by envy, to invade his possessions." — Adam Smith
"It is never wise to seek or wish for another’s misfortune. If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang." — Charley Reese
"Probably the greatest harm done by vast wealth is the harm that we of moderate means do ourselves when we let the vices of envy and hatred enter deep into our own natures." — Teddy Roosevelt
"A clever conjurer is welcome anywhere, and those of us whose powers of entertainment are limited to the setting of booby-traps or the arranging of apple-pie beds must view with envy the much greater tribute of laughter and applause which is the lot of the prestidigitator with some natural gift for legerdemain." — A. A. Milne
"The Bible and several other self-help or enlightenment books cite the Seven Deadly Sins. They are: pride, greed, lust, envy, wrath, sloth, and gluttony. That pretty much covers everything that we do, that is sinful... or fun for that matter." — Dave Mustaine
"Family is so central to Afghan life that all Afghan stories are family stories. Family is something I simply can't resist because all the great themes of human life - duty, grief, sacrifice, love, envy - you find all those things within families." — Khaled Hosseini
"Envy comes from people's ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts." — Jean Vanier 
"It is good to vary in order that you may frustrate the curious, especially those who envy you." — Baltasar Gracian 
"We love in others what we lack ourselves, and would be everything but what we are." — Richard Henry Stoddard 
"When men are full of envy they disparage everything, whether it be good or bad." — Tacitus 
