
“Envy is the central fact of American life.”
"Gore Vidal," interview by Gerald Clarke (1974), The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)
1970s
Source: Oresteia (458 BC), Agamemnon, line 939 (tr. Anna Swanwick)
Ὁ δ' ἀφθόνητός γ' οὐκ ἐπίζηλος πέλει.
“Envy is the central fact of American life.”
"Gore Vidal," interview by Gerald Clarke (1974), The Paris Review Interviews: Writers at Work, 5th series (1981)
1970s
“Jealousy and envy are the signs of lack of emotional control in your life.”
Address in Des Moines, Iowa (4 November 1910)
1910s
Talent of Freedom. What Is Internal Freedom? http://parentingforeveryone.com/freedom/
Chelovek Svobodny (Free Man) (1994)
Letter from Agamemnon at sea (10 March 1795), in Nelson's letters to his wife and other documents, 1785-1831 edited by Navy Records Society, p. 199
1790s
Context: The lives of all are in the hands of Him who knows best whether to preserve it or no, and to His will do I resign myself. My character and good name are in my own keeping. Life with disgrace is dreadful. A glorious death is to be envied, and, if anything happens to me recollect death is a debt we must all pay, and whether now or in a few years hence can be but of little consequence.
“Sculpture is as free as the mind; as complex as life..”
in his notes for an article, 1951
Source: 1950s, from 'Abstract Expressionism' (1990), p. 159
“Life is a compromise between fate and free will.”
Source: A Thousand & One Epigrams: Selected from the Writings of Elbert Hubbard (1911), p. 36