"Envy" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... designate by the mild term "a flirt." It is all fair for us to have our little harmless vanities and weaknesses. We are shamefully debarred from the nobler pursuits and avocations of life; so we may be excused for passing the time in such trivial manoeuvres as we can invent to excite the envy of our own and triumph over the pride of the opposite sex. But that a man should lower himself to act the part of a slave, "tied to an apron-string," and voluntarily be a fool, without being an honest one—it is ...
— Kate Coventry - An Autobiography • G. J. Whyte-Melville
... to his injury. His daily companions could not but feel a reflected honour in their own intimacy with the friend of the eldest son of a Marquis, and were anxious to stand well with one who lived in such high society. Such was natural;—but it was natural also that envy should show itself in ridicule, and that the lord should be thrown in the clerk's teeth when the clerk should be deemed to have given offence. Crocker, when it first became certain that Roden passed much of his time in company with ...
— Marion Fay • Anthony Trollope
... exclusive to admit her in their set. Should not those Gladstone girls be ready to snag themselves? and there was that Mary Talbot, did every thing she could to attract his attention but it was no go. My little Sophronia came along and took the rag off the bush. I guess they will almost die with envy. If he had waited for her father's consent we might have waited till the end of the chapter; but I took the responsibility on my shoulders and the thing is done. My daughter, the Countess of Clarendon. I like the ring of the words; but dear me here's the morning mail, and a ...
— Sowing and Reaping • Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
... freedom of her instincts; but in Mrs. Rossall's drawing-room she could only act a part, and all such divergence from reality was pain. It was not that she resented her subordination, for she was almost devoid of social ambitions and knew nothing of vulgar envy; still less did it come of reasoned revolt against the artificial ordering of precedences; Emily's thoughts did not tend that way. She could do perfect justice to the amiable qualities of those who were set above her; she knew no bitterness in the food ...
— A Life's Morning • George Gissing
... am a bishop," says Ephraim, laughingly; "then you can make the Dean's lady faint away for envy of all your smart things. And as to the white and gold brocade, keep it till the King comes to stay with us, and it will be just the thing for a state ...
— Out in the Forty-Five - Duncan Keith's Vow • Emily Sarah Holt
... is on these its eyes are fixed. It gives heed both to the words of the mouth and the meditations of the heart. And, sometimes, when the lips are speaking fair, suddenly it will fling open the heart's door and show us where, in some secret chamber, Greed and Pride and Envy and Hate sit side by side in unblest fellowship. Verily this law of love is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, quick to discern the thoughts and intents ...
— The Teaching of Jesus • George Jackson
... envy at the magnificent jewels with which the Governor of the Californias was hung, but did not covet the owner. An uglier man than Pio Pico rarely had entered this world. The upper lip of his enormous mouth dipped at the middle; ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton
... under-acted more than the first time. This may be the effect of these cavils; but I hope he has more sense than to mind them. He cannot expect to maintain his present eminence, or to advance still higher, without the envy of his green-room fellows, and the nibbling of their admirers. But, if he don't beat them all, why then—merit hath no purchase in 'these ...
— Life of Lord Byron, Vol. III - With His Letters and Journals • Thomas Moore
... as an officer; he promptly refused any other explanation, and vainly racked his brain to remember if any youthful folly of his could possibly have made him enemies among the teachers of the Academy. He at last felt satisfied that it was envy of his own greatness and rapid advancement which had induced the rascals to take vengeance on his son. Ralph reluctantly followed his father back to the country town where the latter was stationed, and the fair-haired Bertha vanished from his horizon. His mother's wish now ...
— Short Story Classics (American) Vol. 2 • Various
... of this nature are very frequently to be seen converging upon a woman who wears a new dress or bonnet, or some specially attractive article of jewellery. The thought-form may vary in colour according to the precise amount of envy or jealousy which is mingled with the lust for possession, but an approximation to the shape indicated in our illustration will be found in all cases. Not infrequently people gathered in front of a shop-window may be seen thus protruding astral ...
— Thought-Forms • Annie Besant
... this evening that made me sick of it all. Of course I shall do my duty to the end, but I wish that others could finish it up. More than ever I envy your friends who can fight soldiers;" and then he told them briefly of the scene witnessed in the rescue of Mammy ...
— An Original Belle • E. P. Roe
... world, the flesh, and the Devil had not yet reduced his phisique to that degree of weakness which the multiplied spiritual wrestlings had entailed upon the good Doctor. The minister recognized this with a look rather of pity than of envy, and may possibly have bethought himself of that Dives who "in his lifetime received good things," but "now ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 17, No. 103, May, 1866 • Various
... settled somewhat, but the audience was not "nervous" and was only amused. As I sat at the organ, a group outside the door attracted my attention; several bright faced girls, their shawls drawn over their heads with a grace a white girl might envy, but could not hope to attain, and beyond them a face that would pass on the most perfectly appointed stage for one of Macbeth's witches, without being "made-up." The faces of some of the men were as wooden and expressionless as the figures in front of a tobacco shop, but these are they into whose ...
— The American Missionary, Vol. 43, No. 7, July, 1889 • Various
... Majesty's jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy. ...
— Short Stories of Various Types • Various
... generally well-chosen, army of missionaries of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel. Not fewer than fifty-eight of them were placed by the society in this single province. And if among them there were those who seemed to "preach Christ of envy and strife," as if the great aim of the preacher of the gospel were to get a man out of one Christian sect into another, there were others who showed a more Pauline and more Christian conception of their work, taking their full share of the task of bringing the knowledge of Christ to the unevangelized, ...
— A History of American Christianity • Leonard Woolsey Bacon
... part of the harmony by bursting into tears. And being tears of extreme mortification and envy, they were hard to stop. The fountain was large. Matilda sat still, with her eyes glittering, and her head in the position that with her was apt to mean disapproval, and meant it now. But ...
— The House in Town • Susan Warner
... every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him ...
— Essays, First Series • Ralph Waldo Emerson
... as possible. He has his thoughts, no doubt, but he prefers to be very tidy. He takes refuge in the things you throw overboard. He's not at all my sort, and he's not yours either, in a way. Goodness knows what will happen to either of us, but he'll be Captain Langton to the end of his days. I envy that sort of person intensely, and when I meet him I put on ...
— Simon Called Peter • Robert Keable
... with her calash bonnet fallen back, clear to see by the full moonlight, and looking with intent face across Arch street, as it might be with envy of the untroubled dead of generations who lay around the meeting-house. ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell
... something of its sweetness, but to have ended by becoming an obscure housepainter in a village that lived by raising corn and by feeding that corn to red steers —ugh!—the thought made him shudder. He looked with envy at the blue coat and the brass buttons of the railroad agent; he tried vainly to get into the Caxton Cornet Band; he got drunk to forget his humiliation and in the end he fell to loud boasting and to the nursing of a belief ...
— Windy McPherson's Son • Sherwood Anderson
... Baa-baaing to the moon o'er lonely lands. Through all my shivering veins a tender fervour flows; I cry to Love—'Reach out, my Lord, thy hands! And save me from these ugly beasts who ramp and rage Around me all day long—beasts fell and sore— Envy, and Hate, and Calumny!—do thou assuage Their impious mouths, O splendid Love, and floor Their hideous tactics, and their noisome spleen, Withering ...
— A Great Success • Mrs Humphry Ward
... himself; drank gin when he was alone, to mortify a taste for vintages; and though he enjoyed the theatre, had not crossed the doors of one for twenty years. But he had an approved tolerance for others; sometimes wondering, almost with envy, at the high pressure of spirits involved in their misdeeds; and in any extremity inclined to help ...
— Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde • ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
... toward Paris at the greatest speed of his thoroughbred, Fitz-Aymon, awakening along the route, by his elegance and style, sentiments of envy which would have changed to pity were the wounds of the heart visible. Bitter weariness, disgust of life and disgust for himself, were no new sensations to this young man; but he never had experienced them in such poignant ...
— Serge Panine • Georges Ohnet
... tops of the churches and palaces gilt by the morning sun, I was inspired with a sense of daily renovated youth, and fresh enthusiasm, and returned joyfully to the combat, to the invigorating strife with the difficulties of art. Nor did the worm of envy creep round my heart whenever I saw a beautiful idea skilfully executed by any of my young rivals, but constantly spurred on by the talent around me I returned to ...
— Italy, the Magic Land • Lilian Whiting
... a bright Christian. A quaint old author says that "a gloomy Christian does not do credit to Christ's housekeeping." There was no gloom about Bradly's religion: it shone in his heart, in his life, on his face, and in his home; it attracted the troubled and sin-burdened; it was the concealed envy of many who scoffed at and reviled him. And yet there was not unclouded sunshine even in his happy home: a shadow, and a dark one, rested on ...
— True to his Colours - The Life that Wears Best • Theodore P. Wilson
... spend a happy existence. They have every charm—foliage always green, a graceful habit, flowers that rank among the master works of Nature. The poor man who succeeds with them in his modest "bit of glass" has no cause to envy Dives his flaunting Cattleyas and "fox-brush" Aerides. I should like to publish it in capitals—that nine in ten of those suburban householders who read this book may grow the loveliest of orchids if they can find ...
— About Orchids - A Chat • Frederick Boyle
... returning from market, finds the river again at Cascina only to lose it, however, till after a walk of some five miles you come to Pontedera, a wild and miserable place, full of poor and rebellious people, who eye you with suspicion and a sort of envy. Yet in spite of the proclamation of their wretchedness, I think of them now in London, as fortunate. At least upon them the sun will surely shine in the morning, the unsullied infinite night will fall; while for us there is no sun, and ...
— Florence and Northern Tuscany with Genoa • Edward Hutton
... 'I could envy thee, Mary, were it not a sin,' she said once. 'Thou art a real comfort to my dear father. Since my mother died, gladly would I have been his companion, and have sought to ease his captivity, but the Governor of the gaol ...
— A Book of Quaker Saints • Lucy Violet Hodgkin
... can hope his Lines should long Last, in a daily changing Tongue, While they are new, Envy prevails, And as that dies, our ...
— Reflections on Dr. Swift's Letter to Harley (1712) and The British Academy (1712) • John Oldmixon
... R——. Under her stubby, ill-kept hands ruffles and tucks and insertion bands and lace frills were wrought with a beauty and softness of finish, and a speed and precision of workmanship, that made her the wonder and envy of the shop. And with what ease she seemed to do it all, despite the riveted eyes and tense-drawn muscles of her expressionless face! Suddenly her machine stopped, she looked up with a loud yawn, and stretched her arms above her head. She acknowledged the flattery ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson
... course of his career. The other, like a man inspired from the date of his first battle, showed himself the equal of the most consummate masters of the art of warfare. The one by his prompt and continued efforts commanded the admiration of the human race and silenced the voice of envy; the other shone so resplendently from the very beginning that none dared attack him. The one, in a word, by the depth of his genius and the incredible resources of his courage, rose superior to the greatest perils and even knew how to profit by every kind of fickleness of fortune; the other, ...
— The World's Great Sermons, Vol. 2 (of 10) • Grenville Kleiser
... the Natives' Land Act is tyrannical. In fact, though couched in the flowing language of an orator, the speech on the whole is not an unfair summing up of the grievances of the coloured people, and there is a very solemn warning in it. The European labour agitators may well envy Dr. Abdurahman: his logic, his doctrine and his power of invective. He has so much to complain of, he asks for so very little. Just equality of opportunity. He does not propose to set up any Trades' Hall government within a government; he does not talk about or attempt to incite to riot or ...
— Native Life in South Africa, Before and Since • Solomon Tshekisho Plaatje
... flesh they sell. A million regimented assassins, from one extremity of Europe to the other, get their bread by disciplined depredation and murder, for want of more honest employment. Even in those cities which seem to enjoy peace, and where the arts flourish, the inhabitants are devoured by more envy, care, and uneasiness than are experienced by a besieged town. Secret griefs are more cruel than public calamities. In a word I have seen so much, and experienced so much that I ...
— Candide • Voltaire
... still. The story of his incarceration and of the homage paid him, even by Mussulmans, spread through the world. What! The Porte—so prompt to slay, the maxim of whose polity was to have the Prince served by men he could raise without envy and destroy without danger—the Turk, ever ready with the cord and the sack, the sword and the bastinado, dared not put to death a rebel, the vaunted dethroner of the Sultan. A miracle and a ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill
... and his voice was unsteady. The reputation of the late baronet had been one which I personally did not envy him, but whatever his faults, and I knew they had been many, he had evidently possessed the redeeming virtue of being a ...
— The Green Eyes of Bast • Sax Rohmer
... condemned to solitude, he tried to convince himself that he had no need of society, that he despised its attractions, and could be self-sufficing. So far was this from the truth that he often regarded with bitter envy those of his fellow-students who had the social air, who conversed freely among their equals, and showed that the pursuits of the College were only a part of their existence. These young men were either preparing for the University, or would pass from Whitelaw to ...
— Born in Exile • George Gissing
... her to do any housework, so the girl grows up without much knowledge of the care of a home. True, she often is enabled to do a few things. She learns to make cake and several varieties of candy and perhaps can fashion a collar that is the envy of her schoolmates. Sometimes she even helps her mother with the dishes or the dusting, but it is easier for the mother to take the responsibility of the housekeeping than it is to teach her daughter ...
— Herself - Talks with Women Concerning Themselves • E. B. Lowry
... to my grave; that having been in a manner domestic with you for almost four years, it was never in the power of any public or concealed enemy to make you think ill of me, though malice and envy were often employed to that end. If I live, posterity shall know that, and more; which, though you, and somebody that shall be nameless, seem to value less than I could wish, is all the return I can make you. Will you give me leave to say how I would desire to stand in your memory? As one, who was ...
— Selected English Letters (XV - XIX Centuries) • Various
... the 30th of next November has no business to be flitting around the way Howells does—that shameless old fictitious butter fly. (But if he comes, don't tell him I said it, for it would hurt him and I wouldn't brush a flake of powder from his wing for anything. I only say it in envy of his indestructible youth, anyway. Howells will be 88 in October.) With thanks again, ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain
... officers must not be jealous of each other. If one person is envious of another, the second is sure to be envious of the first. Thus the evils of jealousy never end. If men shall envy each other on account of their talent and wisdom, no single wise man would ever be obtained for government service through a thousand years. What a noble method of governing a state would that be which expelled from its service all ...
— Japan • David Murray
... others as well as for his own. He takes a small house in the country, and fills it with guests, to whom he offers admirable wines, and excellent cigars. His wife is always beautifully dressed, and glitters with an array of jewels which make her the envy of many a steady leader of fashion. The world begins to ask, vaguely at first, but with a constantly increasing persistence, how the thing is done. Respectability and malice combine to whisper a truthful answer. Starting from the axiom that the precarious income which is produced ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 100. February 14, 1891. • Various
... Clement of Alexandria, the Moses of Athens; the philosopher of the Christians, by Arnobius; and the god of philosophers, by Cicero—Athenaeus accuses of envy; Theopompus of lying; Suidas of avarice; Aulus Gellius, of robbery; Porphyry, of incontinence; and Aristophanes, ...
— Curiosities of Literature, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Isaac D'Israeli
... received. No sooner had the sound of that mighty tempest reached us in England, than the whole of the then opposition, instead of feeling humbled by the unhappy issue of their measures, seemed to be infinitely elated, and cried out, that the ministry, from envy to the glory of their predecessors, were prepared to repeal the Stamp Act. Near nine years after, the honorable gentleman takes quite opposite ground, and now challenges me to put my hand to my heart and say whether the ministry had resolved on the repeal ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke
... fairy-like transformations of our theaters, the most resplendent pageants of our military reviews, the most sumptuous marvels on which the human race can pride itself—all that we admire, all that we envy on the Earth—is as nothing compared with the unheard-of wonders scattered through Infinitude. There are so many that one does not know how to see them. The fascinated eye would fain ...
— Astronomy for Amateurs • Camille Flammarion
... and art and money could command to make it gorgeous with shrubbery and flowers. The poor lodger, equally fond of floral beauties, beheld their glories, and inhaled their soft perfumes, as fully and as appreciatively as the owner. No emotion of envy disturbed her,—no longing to possess that of which she enjoyed gratuitously so abundant a share. Her mere oversight was ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 15, No. 88, February, 1865 • Various
... Madame, on her side, frequently glanced at La Valliere, De Guiche's eyes following Madame's, were from time to time cast upon the young girl. La Valliere instinctively felt herself sinking beneath the weight of all the different looks, inspired, some by interest, others by envy. She had nothing to compensate her for her sufferings, not a kind word from her companions, nor a look of affection from the king. No one could possibly express the misery the poor girl was suffering. The queen-mother next directed ...
— The Vicomte de Bragelonne - Or Ten Years Later being the completion of "The Three - Musketeers" And "Twenty Years After" • Alexandre Dumas
... but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from place to place, to carry burdens far above my strength, without being allowed to draw near the fire, or ever being cheered by encouragement or kindness. No wonder then, treated like a creature of another species, that I began to envy, and at length to hate, the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly remember, that it was the caresses, and kind expressions of my step-mother, which first excited my jealous discontent. Once, I cannot forget it, when she was calling in vain ...
— Posthumous Works - of the Author of A Vindication of the Rights of Woman • Mary Wollstonecraft
... to Sir Edward Coke, a very religious gentlewoman) by the carelessness, not to say drunkenness of the boatmen, to the great grief of all good men. His excellent comment upon St. Peter is daily desired and expected, if the envy and covetousness of private persons for their own use deprive not the public of the ...
— Andrew Marvell • Augustine Birrell
... And without envy, but with a condescending contempt, Judas would witness these caresses. Of what importance were these tales and kisses and sighs compared with what he, Judas Iscariot, the red-haired, misshapen Judas, begotten among the rocks, could tell them if ...
— The Crushed Flower and Other Stories • Leonid Andreyev
... this, is the "American" whom the European regards with curiosity, contempt, admiration, or envy, as the case may be, but who is incontestably modifying Western Europe, even if he is not, as many journalists and globe-trotters are fond of asserting, "Americanizing" the world. Interesting as it is to glance at him against that European background ...
— The American Mind - The E. T. Earl Lectures • Bliss Perry
... the sea! I could envy thy wing, O'er the blue waters I mark thy glad spring; I see thy strong pinions as onward I glide, Dashed by the foam of the white-crested ...
— Friends and Helpers • Sarah J. Eddy
... the inner apartment, ministering to a few customers, the usual frequenters of the place, those who were currently styled "the gentlemen of the divan." When a man belonged to that set it was as if he had a label on his back; he was spoken of with smiles of mingled contempt and envy. ...
— Nana, The Miller's Daughter, Captain Burle, Death of Olivier Becaille • Emile Zola
... when there was no one to defend me. But the most unreasonable thing of all is, that it is not possible to learn and mention their names, except that one of them happens to be a comic poet.[1] Such, however, as, influenced by envy and calumny, have persuaded you, and those who, being themselves persuaded, have persuaded others, all these are most difficult to deal with; for it is not possible to bring any of them forward here, nor to confute any; but it is altogether ...
— Apology, Crito, and Phaedo of Socrates • Plato
... Ghost would write the golden rule on the tables of your heart? Does not God know that it is the deepest desire of your heart to be able to love your neighbour as yourself? To be able to rejoice with him in his joy as well as to weep with him in his sorrow? What would you not give never again to feel envy in your heart at your brother, or straitness and pining at his prosperity? One thing do I desire, said the Psalmist, that mine ear may be nailed to the doorpost of my God: that I may always be His servant, and may never wander ...
— Bunyan Characters (Second Series) • Alexander Whyte
... Nature's toilet, their wild untutored elegance was singular and bewitching. Indeed, Katherine, or "Kattern," as she was more generally called, was the cynosure of this clime—a jewel, that needed not the foil of its homely setting; the envy and admiration of the whole neighbourhood—well known at church, and at Ormskirk market, where she attended weekly—at the latter place to dispose of her produce. Here she was the torment of many a rustic, unable ...
— Traditions of Lancashire, Volume 2 (of 2) • John Roby
... his fellows, and there was no aristocracy; the women wore linsey-woolsey of home manufacture, and dyed them in accordance with the tastes of the wearers; calico was rarely seen, and a woman wearing a dress of that material was the envy of her sisters. ...
— Lincoln's Yarns and Stories • Alexander K. McClure
... of Montepulciano have scratched Messer Aragazzi's sleeping figure with graffiti at their own free will. Yet they have had no power to erase the poetry of Donatello's mighty style. That, in spite of Bruni's envy, in spite of injurious time, in spite of the still worse insult of the modernised cathedral and the desecrated monument, embalms him in our memory and secures for him the diuturnity for which he paid his twenty thousand crowns. Money, methinks, beholding him, was rarely better expended on ...
— New Italian sketches • John Addington Symonds
... envy you," said Tommy Rebow; "but your hoping is of no use. If the vessel does not go down, we shall all be starved in a few days, so it ...
— Sunshine Bill • W H G Kingston
... is slow; but you are not overwhelmed with work, however. While in a business like this—what cares, what annoyances! I sometimes envy you. You can take an hour to cut your pens. Well, what is ...
— A Romance of Youth, Complete • Francois Coppee
... that you are more careful for the future," said the doctor, springing into his seat in a way that excited his son's envy. ...
— First in the Field - A Story of New South Wales • George Manville Fenn
... their stools to the leads, and do their sewing there. There Philip would condescend to spend a part of his mornings, in his Midsummer holidays, frightening his sisters with climbing about in dangerous places, or amusing them with stories of school pranks, or raising his younger brother Hugh's envy of the boys who were so happy as to be old enough to go to school at Mr ...
— The Crofton Boys • Harriet Martineau
... strengthening our faith, that sin may be put to death in the flesh, and we thereby become of so much better service to our neighbor. For if I control my body so that it be not lustful, then can I leave my neighbor, his wife or child, at peace; while if I subdue hate and envy, I shall become so much better prepared to be kind and friendly toward ...
— The Epistles of St. Peter and St. Jude Preached and Explained • Martin Luther
... envious eyes, as they saw the pile of gold grow larger under his thin nervous hands. Ignorant gamesters, who stood aloof after having lost two or three napoleons, contemplated the lucky Englishman and wondered about him, while some touch of pity leavened the envy excited by his wonderful fortune. He looked like a decayed gentleman—a man who had been a military dandy in the days that were gone, and who had all the old pretensions still, without the power to support them—a Brummel languishing at Caen; a ...
— Birds of Prey • M. E. Braddon
... two sources that by 1592 Shakespeare was an excellent actor, a graceful poet, and a writer of plays that aroused the envy of {10} one of the best dramatists of his day. Obviously, all this could not have happened in a few months, and we are therefore justified in believing that Shakespeare came to London soon after 1585, very likely ...
— An Introduction to Shakespeare • H. N. MacCracken
... the strictest propriety, but had rendered essential services to the colony—George Barrington. He came out in the Active; on his arrival the governor employed him at Toongabbie, and in a situation which was likely to attract the envy and hatred of the convicts, in proportion as he might be vigilant and inflexible. He was first placed as a subordinate, and shortly after as a principal watchman; in which situation he was diligent, sober, and impartial; and ...
— An Account of the English Colony in New South Wales, Vol. 1 • David Collins
... about going to law with your cousin because you have plenty of money of your own," said the waiter to Matvey, looking at him with envy. "It is all very well for anyone who has means, but here I shall die in this position, ...
— The Bishop and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov
... Is there not a mixture of feelings in the spectator of tragedy? and of comedy also? 'I do not understand that last.' Well, then, with the view of lighting up the obscurity of these mixed feelings, let me ask whether envy is painful. 'Yes.' And yet the envious man finds something pleasing in the misfortunes of others? 'True.' And ignorance is a misfortune? 'Certainly.' And one form of ignorance is self-conceit—a man may fancy himself richer, fairer, better, wiser than he is? 'Yes.' And he who thus deceives himself ...
— Philebus • Plato
... gentlemen-pensioners, and twelve of the most select commoners of the university), soon found himself left far behind by the young freshman in the fashionable world of Oxbridge, and being a generous and worthy fellow, without a spark of envy in his composition, was exceedingly pleased at the success of his young protege, and admired Pen quite as much as any of the other youth did. I was he who followed Pen now, and quoted his sayings; learned his songs, and retailed them at minor supper-parties, ...
— The History of Pendennis • William Makepeace Thackeray
... it is reported that our worthy Minister, Talleyrand, has been kind enough to assist him frequently in his amours. Some adventures of this sort, which occurred at Rastadt, afforded much amusement at the Count's expense. Talleyrand, from envy, no doubt, does not allow him the same political merit as his other political contemporaries, having frequently repeated that "the official dinners of Count von Cobenzl were greatly preferable ...
— Memoirs of the Court of St. Cloud, Complete - Being Secret Letters from a Gentleman at Paris to a Nobleman in London • Lewis Goldsmith
... keep himself from too impetuous an answer. For the first time he felt an envy for the cool imperturbability of ...
— The Parts Men Play • Arthur Beverley Baxter
... ocean?" repeated Gladys, looking at Marion as curiously as if she had told her she never saw the sun. "Oh, what a treat you have before you! I almost envy you. This is well enough for a landscape, but the seascapes leave you nothing to desire. Now, come to our room. You are to chum with me, and we will be awful good and kind to ...
— Miss Ashton's New Pupil - A School Girl's Story • Mrs. S. S. Robbins
... he esteem me less capable of gratitude for his patriotism, or sympathy for his sufferings, than if his eyes had first opened upon the light of Massachusetts, instead of South Carolina? Sir, does he suppose it in his power to exhibit a Carolina name so bright as to produce envy in my bosom? No, sir; increased gratification and delight, rather. I thank God that, if I am gifted with little of the spirit which is able to raise mortals to the skies, I have yet none, as I trust, of that other spirit which would drag angels down. When I shall be found, sir, ...
— American Eloquence, Volume I. (of 4) - Studies In American Political History (1896) • Various
... baneberry on its quaintly-shaped red stalks, the pretty fruit clusters of the moonseed and the smilax. The scattered berries of the green-brier will be black in winter, but their September hue is a bronze green of a delicate shade which artists might envy. It will take another month to ripen the drupes of the black-haw into their blue-black beauty; now they are green on one side and red on the other, like a ripening apple. It's a fine education to know just which fruits you may nibble and which you must not eat. Red-stalked ...
— Some Summer Days in Iowa • Frederick John Lazell
... Leave him alone. When he has come to his senses again we'll carry him off from this place and let him breathe clean air. Poor Dick! I don't envy you, ...
— The Light That Failed • Rudyard Kipling
... their presence; Vernou was an actor by nature bound never to pardon the success of another, condemned to chronic discontent because he was never content with himself. Lucien began to understand the sour look which seemed to add to the bleak expression of envy on Vernou's face; the acerbity of the epigrams with which his conversation was sown, the journalist's pungent phrases, keen and elaborately wrought as a stiletto, ...
— A Distinguished Provincial at Paris • Honore de Balzac
... watched the motions of their lord with equal jealousy; and the dismal whine of the bear found an echo in the drawling, slavering laugh of the idiot. The Prince glanced form one to the other; they put him in a capital humor, which was not lessened as he perceived an expression of envy pass over the face of ...
— Beauty and The Beast, and Tales From Home • Bayard Taylor
... just his personal envy. He wasn't in the spread, and of course he doesn't like to hear any one praise it. ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... looked upon the avocations of this strange land, and wondered at them. I could not see with what they were occupied, or why, or to what end. They affected me perhaps something as the concerns of the human race may affect the higher animals. I looked on with an unintelligent envy. ...
— The Gates Between • Elizabeth Stuart Phelps
... passions and our prejudices must be kept in check. If we find that we have a neighbour on the other side of the way, who has been more fortunate in a worldly sense than we have been, and if we discover a little jealousy or envy creeping into our opinions and feelings concerning said neighbour—let us be careful, endeavour to put a rein upon our tongues, and to avoid the indulgence of malevolence or ill-will. If we, on the other hand, have been ...
— Friends and Neighbors - or Two Ways of Living in the World • Anonymous
... door the pair came out into the anteroom: She, radiant with happiness, and so graceful in her fashionable, costly, and well-chosen garb, so royal-looking in spite of her no more than middle height, that even in the capital she would have excited the admiration of the men and the envy of the women: He, content, but with a thoughtful ...
— Uarda • Georg Ebers
... next day after morning prayer he said to the people, "You must know from your own experience, brethren, that no man is without some enemies: envy pursues those chiefly who are very rich. The stranger I spoke to you about yesterday in the evening is no bad man, as some ill-designing persons would have persuaded me: he is a young prince, endowed with every virtue. It behoves us to take care how we give any injurious report ...
— The Arabian Nights Entertainments vol. 3 • Anon.
... spirits as he is. To be sure, he assigns as his reason for plotting to blast Claudio's happiness, that the "young start-up hath all the glory of my overthrow"; but then he also adds, "If I can cross him any way, I bless myself every way"; which shows his true motive-spring to be a kind of envy-sickness. For this cause, any thing that will serve as a platform "to build mischief on" is grateful to him. He thus exemplifies in a small figure the same spontaneous malice which towers to such a stupendous height ...
— Shakespeare: His Life, Art, And Characters, Volume I. • H. N. Hudson
... he was, at thirty-five, envying a girl who could carry wood without weariness. The envy had become acute irritation by the time the wood was stacked and the wood-carrier brought her shining hair and rain-tinted cheeks ...
— The Window-Gazer • Isabel Ecclestone Mackay
... receive it with pleasure; and I can venture to assure you, that my children will neither feel envy, anger, nor any other emotion, except joy, at seeing the little objects of their care benefited, and you happy; for they have been taught only to value such actions, according to the motive in one party, and their usefulness ...
— The Barbadoes Girl - A Tale for Young People • Mrs. Hofland
... pictures and automobiles; where the school trustees used double negatives and traced their ancestry to Colonial considerables—who, however, had signed their names in "lower case" or with a Maltese cross—the world in miniature, with its due proportion of petty graft, petty squabbles, envy, kindness, jealousy, generosity, laziness, ambition, stupidity, intelligence, honesty, hypocrisy, hatred, affection, badness and goodness, as standardised by the code established according to folk-ways on earth—in brief, a perfectly human community composed of the ...
— The Dark Star • Robert W. Chambers
... virtue, will yearn for some outlet for the kindliness that wells up within him. None is offered, and the virtuous fountain trickles itself dry, and no one is a whit the wiser or better. Anon, the same heart breeds envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness, and straightway comes the chance of working evil. The temptation is great, the opportunity is eagerly seized, and wickedness is done; it is so easy to step into the "broad way," so difficult ...
— Sea-Dogs All! - A Tale of Forest and Sea • Tom Bevan
... shall have anything in the world you wish,—dolls, toys, and a playroom to keep them in, and a whole library of story-books. Then parties—whew, you ought to see what parties Julian and Harold have! They'd make you open your eyes with envy!" ...
— Polly of Lady Gay Cottage • Emma C. Dowd
... satisfaction. All that I still desire in this world is a favourable mood and disposition for work, and I find it difficult enough to protect these from the attack of vulgarity. It is the same thing with you. But what astonishes me and appears worthy of envy is that you ...
— Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt, Volume 2 • Francis Hueffer (translator)
... They robbed you? Keep still. They beat you? Bear it. They have killed you? Stay dead. That's certain. And I'll carry off Savka; I'll carry him off!" His curt, barking phrases, full of good-natured irony, perplexed the mother. But his last words aroused envy ...
— Mother • Maxim Gorky
... are several degrees of living, all indeed hateful to us, if we knew them, and yet none without some saving grace in it. You would say that in conditions where men were embattled against one another by the greed and the envy and the ambition which these conditions perpetually appeal to here, there could be no grace in life; but we must remember that men have always been better than their conditions, and that otherwise they would have remained savages without the instinct or the wish to advance. ...
— Through the Eye of the Needle - A Romance • W. D. Howells
... down the street of a half-ruined village in France and his thoughts were pleasant; for he alone amongst all other Corps Commanders was the owner of a cow. There was no other cow in the whole army nearer than G.H.Q., and he pictured the envy of brother Generals when he invited them to come in and have a glass ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various
... any human life, even if it be very young or yet unborn, is a great crime. He who commits murder is to be punished with death. [Gen. 9:6] Among the motives which prompt to murder are anger, hatred, [Gen. 4:1-8] envy, [Gen. 37] jealousy, revenge, [Matt. 14:3-11, Rom. 12:19] frivolity, avarice, robbery, and a desire to hide past sin. [II Sam. 11] We must be on our guard against all that would ever tempt ...
— An Explanation of Luther's Small Catechism • Joseph Stump
... to marry one of the finest men in all the world, with a great store of sterling gifts both of head and heart, and with a life before him of the highest interest, importance and power. Such a man is a companion that any woman might envy you. I daresay you know this without my telling you. On the other part, I will not add myself to those impertinents who—as I understand you to report—wish you "to improve." I very respectfully wish nothing of the sort. Few qualities are better worth leaving as they are than vivacity, wit, ...
— Margot Asquith, An Autobiography: Volumes I & II • Margot Asquith
... tolerates him for just that quality. On only two occasions is he irritable and unmanageable: when his wife gets after him about the drink (Mrs. Willing is an able-bodied lady of Irish descent, with a will and a tongue of her own, to say nothing of an arm a blacksmith might envy) and when he has a duty to perform in his official capacity. It is in the latter instance that he rises magnificently to the dignity of his position. The majesty of the law in his hands becomes at once a bludgeon and ...
— The Fortune Hunter • Louis Joseph Vance
... studies of Yankee character, especially in the country, he was always glad to talk them over with me. Still, when I had discovered a new accent or turn of speech in the fields he had cultivated, I was aware of a subtle grudge mingling with his pleasure; but this was after all less envy ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells
... which had astonished me in the Colosaeum, and which said,—"See the birth of Time! Look at man in his newly created state, full of youth and vigour. Do you see aught in this state to admire or envy?" As the last words fell on my ear, I was again, as before, rapidly put in motion, and I seemed again resistless to be hurried upon a stream of air, and again in perfect darkness. In a moment, an indistinct light again ...
— Consolations in Travel - or, the Last Days of a Philosopher • Humphrey Davy
... degree at college. "In the back settlements are many clergymen who have not had the advantages of a liberal education, and who consequently have no diplomas. Some of these look upon their more favored brethren with a little envy. A clergyman is said to have a sheepskin, or to be a sheepskin, when educated at college."—Bartlett's Dict. ...
— A Collection of College Words and Customs • Benjamin Homer Hall
... of people, I hardly know which is to be regarded with most distaste, the vulgar aping the genteel, or the genteel constantly sneering at and endeavouring to distinguish themselves from the vulgar. These two sets of persons are always thinking of one another; the lower of the higher with envy, the more fortunate of their less happy neighbours with contempt. They are habitually placed in opposition to each other; jostle in their pretensions at every turn; and the same objects and train of thought (only reversed by the relative situation of either party) occupy their whole time and ...
— Table-Talk - Essays on Men and Manners • William Hazlitt
... with the sense of Beauty that steals over it like a divine charm? and through that beauty is not carried up to God the beautiful and bountiful author of it all? God hath made every thing beautiful in its time. I envy not him who is undevout in the presence of so much Beauty. How easily can the devout spirit go through nature up to nature's God. Who loves nature should love God. Who admires Beauty should reverence its Author. Natural beauty inspires piety in a good ...
— Aims and Aids for Girls and Young Women • George Sumner Weaver
... fate! We linger here and droop Beneath the heavy burden of our years, And may not, though we envy, give our lives For England and for honour and for right; But still must wear our weary hours away, While he, that happy fighter, in one leap, From imperfection to perfection borne, Breaks through the bonds that bound him to the earth. ...
— The Vagabond and Other Poems from Punch • R. C. Lehmann
... into two distinct camps: those of today, and those of yesterday. The former—cover their disgust under a smile of opportunism; kin and kind—don't. We hate each other, and envy each other,—as we cannot see which way things will turn.... We will be united only if the ones of to-morrow,—the commune, the third class of people happen to take into their hands the war machinery. Then we both will be crushed, annihilated, ...
— Rescuing the Czar - Two authentic Diaries arranged and translated • James P. Smythe
... first place, sir,' said Mr Tappertit, producing a small pocket-handkerchief and shaking it out of the folds, 'as I have not a card about me (for the envy of masters debases us below that level) allow me to offer the best substitute that circumstances will admit of. If you will take that in your own hand, sir, and cast your eye on the right-hand corner,' said Mr Tappertit, ...
— Barnaby Rudge • Charles Dickens
... spot where a great wrong was done him fifteen years before. So he starts for Wallace, wiring for his car to follow him there. He'd found this car poor for the bloodhound stuff, but he wanted Ben to have a good look at it and eat his heart out with envy, either before or after what was going to happen ...
— Ma Pettengill • Harry Leon Wilson
... on the queen dowager the greater part of the royal revenues; he never consulted either the princes of the blood or the nobility in any public measure; the king himself was so besieged by his creatures, that no access could be procured to him; and all the envy which had attended Gavaston and Spenser fell much more ...
— The History of England in Three Volumes, Vol.I., Part B. - From Henry III. to Richard III. • David Hume
... stage where you will at least not lack triumphs and homage. And I? Why should I be such a stupid fool as to give you up—you who bring to me much more than I deserve—your beauty, your accomplishments, and your generous heart? Ah, I shall be the target of general envy, for there is no lady in Vienna worthy of being compared with you. As I cannot possess her whom I love, I may thank God that my father has selected you for me. You alone are to be pitied, Fanny, for I cannot offer you any compensation for the sacrifices ...
— LOUISA OF PRUSSIA AND HER TIMES • Louise Muhlbach
... reprobation of all civilised Christian communities, their existence presents the miserable moral counterpart of the physical condition of their slaves; and it is one compared with which that of the wretchedest slave is, in my judgement, worthy of envy. ...
— Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation - 1838-1839 • Frances Anne Kemble
... and Gray Pendleton brought back finishing touches of dress, manner, and atmosphere to the dazzled envy of the less fortunate, in spite of the fact that both bore their new claims to distinction with a modesty that would have kept a stranger from knowing that they had ever been away from home. Jason and Mavis were still at the old university when the two arrived. To the mountaineers all four ...
— The Heart Of The Hills • John Fox, Jr.
... numbers, sticking on like snails to a garden wall. Some of the cowries were very beautiful, particularly those of a deep brown colour approaching to black. This kind, however, were rather rare, and the lucky finder of a large one excited some envy. These beautiful little shells are of all sizes, from half an inch to two inches in length. When the stone is first turned over, the fish is almost out of its home, and the bright colour of the ...
— Australian Search Party • Charles Henry Eden
... envied still— Because he was content with frugal lot; But as I envied him, the rich man's will Bequeathed him all, and envy ...
— The Complete Works • James Whitcomb Riley
... for their unaccustomed costumes, each tried nervously to find a seat, desirous of hiding the emphatic blackness of his trousers. There seemed a sort of indecency in that blackness and in the colour of their gloves—a sort of exaggeration of the feelings; and many cast shocked looks of secret envy at 'the Buccaneer,' who had no gloves, and was wearing grey trousers. A subdued hum of conversation rose, no one speaking of the departed, but each asking after the other, as though thereby casting an indirect libation to this event, ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... of nothing, but how good it was to be alive. The fullness and sweetness of it all, the freedom and strength! Away to the West over a lonely farm she could see two buzzard hawks hunting in wide circles. She did not envy them—so happy was she, as happy as the morning. And there came to her suddenly the true, the ...
— Forsyte Saga • John Galsworthy
... sister's beauty may cause her trouble, as it caused her mother before her. It's no advantage, Hetty, to be so marked for anything as to become an object of envy, or to be ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper
... unutterably sad, for all that the end of the war was subject of thanks in every church and synagogue. And so the mystic feast ended, scarcely heeded amid the slow, half-crippled groping for financial readjustment in the teeth of a snarling and vindictive Congress, mean in its envy, meaner in revenge—a domestic brand of sectional Bolsheviki as dirty and degenerate as any anarchist ...
— The Crimson Tide • Robert W. Chambers
... rivalry or competition with Griff, the idea seemingly never crossed his mind, and envy or jealousy were equally aloof from it. One subject of thankfulness runs through these recollections— namely, that nothing broke the tie of strong affection between us three brothers. Griffith might figure as the 'vary parfite knight,' the St. George of the piece, glittering ...
— Chantry House • Charlotte M. Yonge
... shivered into a thousand prismatic arrows, as it fell upon a vast rose-diamond that glittered in the case! I was no judge of diamonds, but I saw at a glance that this was a gem of rare size and purity. I looked at Simon with wonder, and—must I confess it?—with envy. How could he have obtained this treasure? In reply to my questions, I could just gather from his drunken statements (of which, I fancy, half the incoherence was affected) that he had been superintending a gang of slaves engaged in diamond-washing in Brazil; ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I., No. 3, January 1858 - A Magazine of Literature, Art, and Politics • Various
... sovereign, that those who were to be in power upon the succession, and resolved to act in every part by a direct contrary system of politics, should load their predecessors with as much infamy as the most inveterate malice and envy could suggest, or the most stupid ignorance and credulity ...
— The Prose Works of Jonathan Swift, Vol. X. • Jonathan Swift
... that anything you can say yourself will varnish your defects, or add lustre to your perfections! but, on the contrary, it may, and nine times in ten, will, make the former more glaring and the latter obscure. If you are silent upon your own subject, neither envy, indignation, nor ridicule, will obstruct or allay the applause which you may really deserve; but if you publish your own panegyric upon any occasion, or in any shape whatsoever, and however artfully dressed or disguised, they will all conspire against you, and you will be disappointed of the ...
— The PG Edition of Chesterfield's Letters to His Son • The Earl of Chesterfield
... she excitedly exclaimed; "it is, indeed, a lovely spot, exceeding all I have seen, and making me almost envy its possessor." ...
— Strange Pages from Family Papers • T. F. Thiselton Dyer
... send her away, had not England been so far off, and the agreement with Miss Marvell, whose terms were high, unusually stringent. But by the end of the month the girl of eighteen was conquered. She had recognised in Gertrude Marvell accomplishments that filled her with envy, together with an intensity of will, a bitter and fiery purpose, that astounded and subdued a young creature in whom inherited germs of southern energy and passion were only waiting the touch that ...
— Delia Blanchflower • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... is pure gold if not pure whiteness, and in an instant shows herself to be at any rate pure innocence. It could not be envy, she argues, which pierced her as she ...
— Browning's Heroines • Ethel Colburn Mayne
... though he had pulled dozens of races in his time, he was almost as nervous as a freshman on this the first day of the races. Tom, all unconscious of the secret discomposure of the other, threw himself into a chair and looked at him with wonder and envy. The flute went "toot, toot, toot," till he could stand it no longer. So he got up and went to the window, and, leaning out, looked up and down the street for some minutes in a purposeless sort of fashion, staring hard at everybody and everything, but unconscious all the time that he was doing ...
— Tom Brown at Oxford • Thomas Hughes
... seven sacraments. The list of sins contains the nine foreign sins, the six sins against the Holy Ghost, the four sins that cry to God for vengeance, the five senses the Ten Commandments, and the seven mortal sins: pride, covetousness, unchastity, anger, gluttony, envy, and sloth. Each of these mortal sins is again analyzed extensively. The Weimar edition of Luther's Works remarks: "If these catalogs were employed for self-examination, confusion, endless torment, or complete externalization of the consciousness of sin was bound to result. ...
— Historical Introductions to the Symbolical Books of the Evangelical Lutheran Church • Friedrich Bente
... selfishness—of the majority, invited a friend now and then to share their good fortune. There were such noble souls; their numbers were few—not ten per cent, of those in a position to be hospitable—but all the more precious for their rarity. It was a sight to fill one with envy to see the cherished chickens being carried through the streets as carefully as if they were worth their weight in gold—as indeed they nearly were. Ever and anon the bearer of a bird would be saluted by a passer-by who would desire to know its price. On hearing it he would ...
— The Siege of Kimberley • T. Phelan
... that it was called "another, a new Athens." It was also the port of an adventurous people, who founded Nice, Antibes, la Ciotat, and Agde, and explored a part of Africa and Northern Europe; and at the fall of the Roman Empire it became, by very virtue of its riches and safe harbour, the envy and the prey of a succession of barbaric and "infidel" invaders. In the Middle Ages it had all the vicissitudes of wars and sieges to which a great city could be subjected. It had a Viscount, and from very early days, a Bishop; it was at one time part of the Kingdom of Arles; ...
— Cathedrals and Cloisters of the South of France, Volume 1 • Elise Whitlock Rose
... from Scotland, somewhere between 1770 and 1780, and, as I have often heard, the first umbrella seen at Stamford. I well remember, also, an amusing description given by the late Mr. Warry, so many years consul at Smyrna, of the astonishment and envy of his mother's neighbours, at Sawbridgeworth, in Hants, where his father had a country house, when he ran home and came back with an umbrella, which he had just brought from Leghorn, to shelter them from a pelting shower which detained them in the church porch, after ...
— Umbrellas and their History • William Sangster |
