Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Envy Quotations

Hatred is active, and envy passive dislike; there is but one step from envy to hate.

The Primal Plant is going be the strangest creature in the world, which Nature herself must envy me. With this model and the key to it, it will be possible to go on for ever inventing plants and know that their existence is logical; that is to say, if they do not actually exist, they could, for they are not the shadowy phantoms of a vain imagination, but possess an inner necessity and truth. The same law will be applicable to all other living organisms.

Men are so constituted that every one undertakes what he sees another successful in, whether he has aptitude for it or not.

Hatred is active displeasure, envy passive. We need not wonder that envy turns to soon to hatred.

What a day it is when we must envy the men in their graves.

Ill-humor is nothing more than an inward feeling of our own want of merit, a dissatisfaction with ourselves which is always united with an envy that foolish vanity excites.

The world of empirical morality consists for the most part of nothing but ill will and envy.