“I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.”

“I envy people who drink — at least they know what to blame everything on.”

“I knew that what I had felt was envy or regret, not for something lost but for something never achieved.”

“O! what a Godlike Power is that of doing Good! — I envy the Rich and the Great for nothing else!”

“Envy consists in seeing things never in themselves, but only in their relations. If you desire glory, you may envy Napoleon, but Napoleon envied Caesar, Caesar envied Alexander, and Alexander, I daresay, envied Hercules, who never existed.”

“Jealousy’s vicious bulldog trampled through my soul. I was furious, no, furious is not a strong enough word; I was enraged with envy, hate, and malice toward a strange brunette kissing my boyfriend. What is that tramp doing with my man?”

“Despair leads to many forms of thought,” said the magus, “and many kinds of action. Despair drives some to greater sanity, towards an analysis of the world as it is and what it might be. Others it drives to deep and dangerous insanity, towards an imposition of their own desires upon reality. I sympathize with your despair, Johannes Klosterheim, because it has no solace, in the end. Your despair is the worst there is to know. And yet men often look upon the likes of you and envy you, as you doubtless envy Duke Arioch, as Duke Arioch doubtless envies his master Lucifer, whom he would betray, and perhaps as Lucifer envied God. And what does God envy, I wonder? Perhaps he envies the simple mortal who is content with his lot and envies nobody.”

“They envy the distinction I have won; let them, therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.”

“I envy stupidity, stupidity is eternal.”

“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.”