Part I, Chapter 1.2, the mysterious stranger's words to Bob Shane
Lightning (1988)
“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.”
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Bertrand Russell 562
logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and politi… 1872–1970Related quotes

“The player envies only the player, the poet envies only the poet.”
"On Envy"
The Plain Speaker (1826)

"The Ruling Passion in Death" (1833), p. 75
Literary and Historical Miscellanies (1855)

“I envy what I fear and hate what I envy.”
Source: The Poison Eaters and Other Stories

“Three be the things I shall never attain:
Envy, content, and sufficient champagne.”
Source: The Portable Dorothy Parker

Source: The von Bek family, The War Hound and the World's Pain (1981), Chapter 15 (p. 153)

Address in Des Moines, Iowa (4 November 1910)
1910s

“He who has never envied the vegetable has missed the human drama.”
Source: The Fall Into Time (1964), p. 178, first American edition (1970)