In this post I’d like to simply share the best and most powerful jealousy and envy quotes.
To help you to not get dragged in and down into those two destructive thought habits anymore (or at least a lot less often).
And to make you see how other people’s envy and jealousy is something you should not take too seriously or engage in because it’s their problem and hurts them the most.
I hope you’ll find these quotes as helpful and impactful as I have to live a lighter, kinder and happier life.
And if you want even more helpful inspiration and tips then check out this post with quotes on dealing with toxic people and this one filled with feel good quotes.
Jealousy Quotes on Love and Relationships
“Never hate jealous people. They are jealous because they think you are better than them.”
Paulo Coelho
“Noble hearts are neither jealous nor afraid because jealousy spells doubt and fear spells pettiness.”
Honoré de Balzac
“Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ”
Carrie Fisher
“Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
François de La Rochefoucauld
“It’s true that people who feel inadequate, insecure, or overly dependent tend to be more jealous than others.”
Helen Fisher
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.”
Corinthians 13:4
“Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits.”
Paul Eldridge
“Jealousy hyphenates love in all the wrong places.”
Terri Guillemets
“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
“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
“Jealousy cuts across, and does not necessarily blend with, other aspects of a relationship.”
Terri Apter
“Passion can quickly slip to jealous or even hatred.”
Arthur Golden
“Even if people pretend that they’re OK with it, jealousy can eat people alive.”
Phoebe Fox
“What sort of love is permeated by jealousy? You are jealous because you are unaware that everything you need is inside you.”
Peter Deunov
“My heart is too valuable to allow hatred and jealousy to rent a spot.”
Mufti Ismail Menk
“Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.”
Shannon L. Alder
“Love bears two negative feelings; fear and jealousy, overcoming that, beautify life; otherwise, these become self-hurting.”
Ehsan Sehgal
“Jealousy is not a barometer by which the depth of love can be read, it merely records the degree of the lover’s insecurity.”
Margaret Mead
“Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.”
Gene Tierney
“Rust consumes iron and envy consumes itself.”
Danish Proverb
“Comparison is a very foolish attitude, because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears.”
Osho
“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.”
Jennifer James
Jealousy Quotes on Not Letting It Steal Your Joy
“It’s a completely useless emotion – jealousy. I don’t go there.”
Joy Behar
“The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.”
Socrates
“‘Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy,’ he thought. ‘For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistible urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.’”
J.R. Ward
“Comparison is the thief of joy.”
Theodore Roosevelt
“Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.”
Harold Coffin
“Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt.”
Terri Guillemets
“A show of envy is an insult to oneself.”
Yevgeny Alexandrovich Yevtushenko
“But jealous souls will not be answered so. They are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself.”
William Shakespeare
“Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.”
Anna Godbersen
“No one can have all he wants, but a man can refrain from wanting what he has not, and cheerfully make the best of a bird in the hand.”
Seneca
“Your time is too precious to be sacrificed in wasted days combating the menial forces of hate, jealousy, and envy.”
Og Mandino
“O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.”
William Shakespeare
“Jealousy is a funny thing. We spend so much of high school consumed by it, hating that another person has something we don’t, wishing we could taste what it’s like to be them.”
Casey McQuiston
“Do not spoil what you have by desiring what you have not.”
Ann Brashares
“Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.”
Gosho Aoyama
Jealousy and Envy Quotes to Make You Think
“Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.”
Honore de Balzac
“The jealous are possessed by a mad devil and a dull spirit at the same time.”
Johann Kaspar
“Yet he was jealous, though he did not show it, for jealousy dislikes the world to know it.”
Lord By
“Jealousy is an ugly emotion, but it tells the truth. You mostly envy those who have what you desire.”
Susan Cain
“Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?”
Sean Covey
“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
“Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.”
H.G. Wells
“Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.”
Buddha
“Jealousy – that jumble of secret worship and ostensible aversion.”
Emil Cioran
“He who is jealous, is never jealous of what you see, with what is imagined is enough.”
Jacinto Benavente
“Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.”
William Shenstone
“Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love.”
George Eliot
“Jealousy – that sickening combination of possessiveness, suspicion, rage, and humiliation – can overtake your mind and threaten your very core as you contemplate your rival.”
Helen Fisher
“The spirit of envy can destroy; it can never build.”
Margaret Thatcher
“Beware of those who are bitter, for they will never allow you to enjoy your fruit.”
Suzy Kassem
“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
Insightful Jealousy and Envy Quotes
“I am convinced that the jealous, the angry, the bitter, and the egotistical are the first to race to the top of mountains. A confident person enjoys the journey, the people they meet along the way and sees life not as a competition.”
Shannon Alder
“It’s only natural to feel jealous, but what you do afterwards separates you from the crowd.”
Sarvesh Jain
“Keep your attention focused entirely on what is truly your own concern, and be clear that what belongs to others is their business and none of yours.”
Epictetus
“Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”
Fulton J. Sheen
“Self-esteem and self-love are the opposites of fear; the more you like yourself, the less you fear anything.”
Brian Tracy
“Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.”
John Gay
“It is not greed that drives the world, but envy.”
Warren Buffett
“Jealousy lives in a place of low self-esteem and the envious are consumed by their own poisonous thoughts. So focus on being kind towards both yourself and others to live a healthier life.”
Unknown
“Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.”
Elizabeth Bowen
“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 – in fact, they are almost incompatible; one emotion hardly leaves room for the other.”
Robert A. Heinlein
Wise Jealousy and Envy Quotes
“In jealousy there is more of self-love than of love to another.”
François de La Rochefoucauld
“I don’t ever remember being particularly jealous of anybody, because I figured if I can’t do it myself, I don’t deserve to get it.”
Clyde Tombaugh
“The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.”
Baltasar Gracian
“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
“To cure jealousy is to see it for what it is, a dissatisfaction with self.”
Joan Didion
“Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man’s self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.”
Francis Bacon
“Don’t waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.”
Mary Schmich
“Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.”
Friedrich Nietzsche
“Anger, resentment, and jealousy don’t change the heart of others – it only changes yours.”
Shannon Alder
“The thermometer of success is merely the jealousy of the malcontents.”
Salvador Dali
“Do not listen to nay-sayers, or those who may be envious or jealous of your intentions. See the possibilities. The world belongs to the doers not the nay-sayers.”
Byron Pulsifer
“Take heed you harbor not that vice called Envy, lest another’s happiness be your torment, and God’s blessing become your curse.”
Wellins Calcott
“Envy, if surrounded on all sides by the brightness of another’s prosperity, like the scorpion confined within a circle of fire, will sting itself to death.”
Charles Caleb Colton
“A grateful, smart and self confident person counts his blessings rather than being envious of someone else’s blessings.”
Unknown
“Nothing is more capable of troubling our reason, and consuming our health, than secret notions of jealousy in solitude.”
Aphra Behn
“Grudges get heavier, the longer they are carried.”
F.P.K. Thomajan
“Jealousy is one of the wickedest of all the passions. It is that which has been the most fruitful mother of tragedies, murders, and wars. But reprehensible though it is, jealousy is almost rather to be pitied than blamed–its first victims are those who harbour the feeling.”
Arthur Lynch
“A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.”
Jean Baudrillard
“Aside from the real threats that are often present in our lives, there are other triggers of jealousy that are rooted in our own problems.”
Ryan Help
“To live without comparison is to remove a tremendous burden.”
Jiddu Krishnamurti
“People hate those who make them feel their own inferiority.”
Lord Chesterfield
Short Jealousy Quotes
“As iron is eaten away by rust, so the envious are consumed by their own passion.”
Antisthenes
“The wicked envy and hate; it is their way of admiring.”
Victor Hugo
“Trifles light as air; Are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.”
William Shakespeare
“Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.”
Robert A. Heinlein
“You can’t be yourself within jealousy.”
Toba Beta
“It is in the character of very few men to honor without envy a friend who has prospered.”
Aeschylus
“Our envy of others devours us most of all.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“Jealousy… is mental cancer.”
B. C. Forbes
“Jealousy is when you count someone else’s blessings instead of your own.”
Roy T. Bennett
“Jealousy’s a weak emotion.”
Jay-Z
“Envy shoots at others and wounds itself.”
English Proverb
“Envy is pain at the good fortune of others.”
Aristotle
Quick and Punchy Jealousy and Envy Quotes
“The lovesick, the betrayed, and the jealous all smell alike.”
Colette
“I envy people who drink – at least they know what to blame everything on.”
Oscar Levant
“Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope.”
Josh Billings
“Nothing brings on jealousy like laughter.”
Françoise Sagan
“Envy comes from people’s ignorance of, or lack of belief in, their own gifts.”
Jean Vanier
“Envy assails the noblest: the winds howl around the highest peaks.”
Ovid
“Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
William Shakespeare
“Jealousy is the tie that binds, and binds, and binds.”
Helen Rowland
“A jealous woman does better research than the FBI.”
Unknown
“What is jealousy but a reflection of your own failures?”
Michael Connelly
“Jealousy is a crutch.”
Terri Guillemets
“Envy is ignorance.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson
“My wife’s jealousy is getting ridiculous. The other day she looked at my calendar and wanted to know who May was.”
Rodney Dangerfield
“Jealousy is all the fun you think they had.”
Erica Jong
“You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.”
Gary Allan
“Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.”
Samuel Johnson
If you liked these jealousy / envy quotes then share them with family or maybe a friend on social media or via email.
Want even more motivation and inspiration for a healthier life of less negative emotions? Check out this post with inspiring quotes about how to handle fake people and friends and also this one on cutting destructive people out of your life.