When you’re having feelings of envy, you’ll feel resentful or discontent because of what someone else has. This feeling could arise over something someone else physically possesses, qualities they have, or even their luck.
The feeling can take over your thoughts and cause you to lose track of your own goals. Even knowing this, it can be hard to shake the feeling.
You can find relief through some of the many inspirational quotes about being envious, and you may even find some ideas for how to avoid those feelings altogether. If you like these inspirational quotes, you can find many more, or you can even try to write your own.
20 Inspirational Quotes to Overcome Feelings of Envy
1. “The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.”
– Baltasar Gracián
The envious feelings you are experiencing won’t just go away after that first experience. If you let them continue, you’ll feel that awful feeling each time someone does something you haven’t done yet. You can’t allow yourself to feel inferior every time someone has an accomplishment or your own dreams may pass you by.
2. “Comparison is a very foolish attitude because each person is unique and incomparable. Once this understanding settles in you, jealousy disappears.”
-Osho
By comparing yourself to others, you are unfair to yourself. You are unique in your own way, and your talents and attributes should be compared to no one else. Just live your life and remind yourself that when someone else succeeds, it doesn’t mean that you have failed.
3. “The envious person grows lean with the fatness of their neighbor.”
– Socrates
When you spend your time feeling envious of others, you are depriving yourself. This is because when your attention is focused elsewhere, you aren’t giving your full attention to your own goals and desires. So, while the person you are envious of continues growing, you are still just watching their success and not working on your own.
4. “Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit.”
– de Puixieux
In other words, each time you feel envious or jealous, you’re making yourself inferior to others. In order to teach yourself and engrain in your mind that you are good enough, you must try to avoid feeling this way.
5. “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.”
– François de La Rochefoucauld
Realistically, the things you are feeling envious about may only keep that person happy for a few minutes. If your harmful feelings last longer than their happiness, your peace of mind was wasted even more.
6. “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
Remember, you do have value. By loving yourself, you can eliminate the feelings of jealousy, and your opinion of yourself will become more positive. This will lead to meeting your own goals and succeeding in what you set your mind on.
7. “You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.”
-Gary Allan
Anyone can become jealous or envious. Even if you seem to have the world, you may still be jealous of someone else. There will always be someone who has something you desire; all you can do is stop it from turning into an envious feeling.
8. “Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.”
– George Eliot
Omniscience is when a person knows everything. This is rarely accomplished, meaning that your jealousy will never be satisfied.
9. “If we trace the evolutionary history of humankind, we find that part of the reason we suffer from jealous thoughts and emotions about the past and (the present) is because it has been hardwired into us since the dawn of time to do so.” –
Jeff Billings
Just like with any illness or mental problems that run in the family, you work to minimize the likelihood that the problem affects you. You can do the same with jealousy, even if it has been hardwired into you. Learn to avoid those feelings and how to get them in check when they creep up.
10. “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
Since everyone has something that no one else has, that means everyone will excel in different areas and may reach goals before others. This does not mean that you are any less; this just means that it isn’t your time to shine yet.
11. “Don’t waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.”
– Mary Schmich
If you aren’t ahead this time, there will be other chances. Wasting time being jealous isn’t going to change it either way. It will, however, cause you to miss out on time you could have used to get ahead.
12. “Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt.”
– Terri Guillemets
Each time you feel that pang of jealousy, you inflict yourself with more self-doubt. This self-doubt only slows you down, and eventually, you’ll begin thinking you aren’t capable.
13. “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.”
– Harold Coffin
Even if you don’t have everything, you are still blessed in other ways. By being jealous of what someone else has, you forget about the blessings you do have.
14. “Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.”
– Elizabeth Bowen
You shouldn’t spend time feeling bad or alone when everyone else is smiling and happy. Don’t let the fact that someone else has left you feeling alone and like everyone is against you.
15. “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
By feeling jealous, you are the first victim of your feelings. Honestly, your jealousy won’t even affect others unless it leads to those tragedies mentioned in the inspirational quotes. When it gets to that point, it can come out in angry, tragic ways.
16. “Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.”
– Johann Von Goethe
Sometimes you have to be willing to admit that you just don’t have the talent for something. Rather than feel jealous that another is successful, find something different that you are truly talented in and can find success in.
17. “Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.”
– Samuel Johnson
Each time you experience envious feelings, you’re admitting that the other person is more superior than you are. Unless you believe this to be true, stop beating yourself up in this way.
18. “Jealousy—Tormenting yourself, for fear you should be tormented by another.”
– Paul Chatfield
In this scenario, the outcomes are the same; you feel tormented. Whereas, if you avoid feeling jealous, there may end up being no feelings of torment at all. Don’t force terrible feelings on yourself out of fear that someone else will do it to you.
19. “If you’re suffering from problems of self-esteem or from constant bouts of jealousy, it didn’t happen overnight.” Bailey Jackson
These are problems that get worse over time, so when it’s constantly happening, it means that you have been building up to that point for a while. If you haven’t reached this point yet, find a way to get it under control before it does happen.
20. “Oh, what a bitter thing it is to look into happiness through another man’s eyes.”
– William Shakespeare
In order to truly feel happy, you have to experience it through your own eyes. Being jealous and experiencing envious feelings means that you are viewing the world through someone else’s eyes and assuming that it’s better for them.
Here’s advice on how to cope with feeling envious of your friends.
Final Thoughts on Learning From These 20 Inspirational Quotes to Overcome Feelings of Envy
It may be hard to avoid feeling envy, but it is important to try. After a while, you’ll find that it isn’t an issue for you anymore.
Just like with most things in life, if you make it a habit, you’ll find it becomes commonplace. Find a way to ward off the envious feelings, and life will get much better.
Through the reading of inspirational quotes, you may find a way to overcome the feeling more easily.
