Jealousy is an emotion that almost everyone has experienced, and it can be a difficult feeling to process. Whether we’re dealing with envy of someone else’s success or fear of our own relationship ending, jealousy can throw us into a spiral of negative emotions.

To help us make sense of this complex feeling, we’ve compiled a list of quotes about jealousy that explore the power of this emotion. Here, you’ll find words from authors, celebrities, and everyday people who’ve all been touched by the sometimes tumultuous nature of jealousy. Read on for some insight into how jealous feelings can influence our lives.

  1. “Life is one big road with lots of signs. So when you riding through the ruts, don’t complicate your mind. Flee from hate, mischief and jealousy. Don’t bury your thoughts, put your vision to reality. Wake Up and Live!” – Bob Marley
  2. “The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.” – Baltasar Gracián
  3. “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” ― H.G. Wells
  4. “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.” ― William Penn
  5. “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” – Proverbs 14:30
  6. “Rust consumes iron and envy consumes itself.” – Danish Proverb
  7. “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others– it only changes yours.” ― Shannon Alder
  8. “ Don’t waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.” ― Mary Schmich
  9. “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
  10. “Envy is a littleness of soul, which cannot see beyond a certain point, and if it does not occupy the whole space, feels itself excluded.” – William Hazlitt
  11. “Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?” ― Sean Covey
  12. “You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.” ― Gary Allan
  13. “Take heed you harbor not that vice called Envy, lest another’s happiness be your torment, and God’s blessing become your curse.” – Wellins Calcott
  14. “Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.” – Buddha
  15. “It is never wise to seek or wish for another’s misfortune. If malice or envy were tangible and had a shape, it would be the shape of a boomerang.” – Charley Reese
  16. “You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.” ― Margaret Atwood
  17. “Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” ― Shannon L. Alder
  18. “I get jealous because I am afraid that someone is going to make you happier than I do.” – Frank Ocean
  19. “Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.” – John Dryden
  20. “Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
  21. “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.” – Unknown
  22. “It is jealousy that leads people to tarnish you.” – Priyadarshan
  23. “Sure, I can get a little bit jealous. The good part about jealousy is that it comes from passion. It’s also the dangerous part and it’s an ugly emotion that hurts.” – Matthew McConaughey
  24. “Keep yourselves far from envy; it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood.” – Muhammad
  25. “Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man’s self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.” – Francis Bacon
  26. “Envy is like a fly that passes all the body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores.” – Arthur Chapman
  27. “Even if people pretend that they’re OK with it, jealousy can eat people alive.” – Phoebe Fox
  28. “Jealousy—Tormenting yourself, for fear you should be tormented by another.” – Paul Chatfield
  29. “Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.” – George Bernard Shaw
  30. “In jealousy there is more self-love than love.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
  31. “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.” – Harold Coffin
  32. “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” – Fulton J. Sheen
  33. “It’s a completely useless emotion – jealousy. I don’t go there.” – Joy Behar
  34. “Jealousy eats away at relationships like acid. It’s corrosive and destructive. It destroys trust and intimacy.” – Dr. Gary Chapman
  35. “He that is not jealous is not in love.” – Augustine
  36. “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.” – William Penn
  37. “Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.” – Gene Tierney
  38. “Jealousy is an ugly emotion, because it is based on fear. Fear is ugly, because it is based in ignorance. Ignorance is ugly, because it prevents people from seeing things clearly.” – Deepak Chopra
  39. “Jealousy is the worst trait in any person.” – Adam DeVine
  40. “Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.” – Elizabeth Bowen
  41. “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
  42. “The knives of jealousy are honed on details.” – Ruth Rendell
  43. “Jealousy is the dragon in paradise; the hell of heaven; and the most bitter of the emotions because it is associated with the sweetest.” – R. Orage
  44. “Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
  45. “Jealousy is unavoidable – it’s part of the price we pay for intimacy.” – Rachel Simmons
  46. “Jealousy in romance is like salt in food. A little can enhance the savor, but too much can spoil the pleasure and, under certain circumstances, can be life-threatening.”- Maya Angelou
  47. “Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.” – Gosho Aoyama
  48. To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.” – Francoise Sagan
  49. “Don’t let anyone steal your joy. Don’t let anything destroy your peace of mind. Be careful of your thoughts. Your thoughts create your feelings. Your feelings create your actions. Your actions change your destiny.” – Buddha
  50. “Jealousy is the great exaggerator.”- Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
  51. “Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit.”- de Puixieux
  52. “Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt.” – Terri Guillemets
  53. “Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.” – William Shenstone
  54. “Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
  55. “Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.” – François de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims
  56. “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
  57. “Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits.” – Paul Eldridge
  58. “Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.” – George Eliot
  59. “Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.” –Francois de la Rochefoucauld
  60. “Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.” ― Shannon L. Alder
  61. “Jealousy is that pain which a man feels from the apprehension that he is not equally beloved by the person whom he entirely loves.” – Joseph Addison
  62. “Jealousies are like ghosts: they come unbidden into the heart, and there haunt us until we either drive them away or kill ourselves trying to chase them off.” – Gail Sheehy
  63. “A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” – Robert A. Heinlein
  64. “Never hate jealous people. They are jealous because they think you are better than them.” — Paulo Coelho.
  65. “Love is that condition in which the happiness of another person is essential to your own… Jealousy is a disease, love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other, or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.” — Robert A. Heinlein
  66. “Welcome to the wonderful world of jealousy, he thought. For the price of admission, you get a splitting headache, a nearly irresistable urge to commit murder, and an inferiority complex. Yippee.” ― J.R. Ward
  67. “O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” – William Shakespeare
  68. “Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.” – Havelock Ellis
  69. “Trifles light as air, are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.” – William Shakespeare, Othello
  70. “There will always be someone willing to hurt you, put you down, gossip about you, belittle your accomplishments and judge your soul. It is a fact that we all must face. However, if you realize that God is a best friend that stands beside you when others cast stones you will never be afraid, never feel worthless and never feel alone.” ― Shannon Alder
  71. “Gossip is just a tool to distract people who have nothing better to do from feeling jealous of those few of us still remaining with noble hearts.” ― Anna Godbersen
  72. “Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
  73. “A lot of people get so hung up on what they can’t have that they don’t think for a second about whether they really want it.” ― Lionel Shriver
  74. “Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.” – Samuel Johnson
  75. “Never hate jealous people. They are jealous because they think you are better than them.” — Paulo Coelho
  76. “Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.” – Honore de Balzac
  77. “Jealousy is both reasonable and belongs to reasonable men, while envy is base and belongs to the base, for the one makes himself get good things by jealousy, while the other does not allow his neighbour to have them through envy.” – Aristotle
  78. “But jealous souls will not be answered so. They are not ever jealous for the cause, but jealous for they’re jealous. It is a monster begot upon itself, born on itself.” — William Shakespeare
  79. “Cheating is directly linked to lack of intelligence, insecurity, low self-esteem, and an overall sense of unhappiness with one’s own life!”
  80. “I refused to believe that love could take any other form than mine: I measured love by the extent of my jealousy, and by that standard, of course, she could not love me at all.” – Graham Greene
  81. “Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.” – Honoré de Balzac
  82. “Envy is ignorance.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
  83. “Famous Harry Potter,” said Malfoy. “Can’t even go to a bookshop without making the front page.” ― J.K. Rowling
  84. “The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.” – Bette Midler
  85. “The jealousy that arises from another’s achievement is overcome by developing an awareness of and admiration for one’s own and other’s achievement.” ― Dalai Lama
  86. “More men die of jealousy than of cancer.” -Joseph P. Kennedy
  87. “Jealousy is a disease. Get well soon.” — Paris Hilton
  88. “Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.” – Mark Twain
  89. “The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.” ― Criss Jami
  90. “Jealousy is a disease; love is a healthy condition. The immature mind often mistakes one for the other or assumes that the greater the love, the greater the jealousy.”– Robert Heinlein
  91. “Being jealous is normal, but when you have too much jealousy, then there must be something wrong. Jealousy is not good for your body and mind.”
  92. “I think it’s important to get your surroundings as well as yourself into a positive state – meaning surround yourself with positive people, not the kind who are negative and jealous of everything you do.”– Heidi Klum
  93. “One of the most powerful lessons in life is to recognize that no one can give you power, and many people don’t want you to have it. You have to find the courage to seize it, own it and hold on!” ― Shannon L. Alder
  94. “There is no greater glory than love, nor any greater punishment than jealousy.” –Lope de Vega
  95. “For God’s sake, let’s take the word ‘possess’ and put brick around its neck and drown it. We can’t possess one another. We can only give and hazard all we have.” – Dorothy L. Sayers
  96. “Women detest a jealous man whom they do not love, but it angers them when a man they do love is not jealous.” — L’Enclos
  97. “Aside from the real threats that are often present in our lives, there are other triggers of jealousy that are rooted in our own problems.” — Ryan Help
  98. “Jealousy is just lack of self-confidence.”
  99. “A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.” -Jean Baudrillard
  100. “Jealousy is a strong emotion that can break any strong relationship.”
  101. “The jealous bring down the curse they fear upon their own heads.” – Dorothy Dix
  102. “Pure love allows no room for jealousy.”- James Lendall Basford (
  103. “If you’re suffering from problems of self-esteem or from constant bouts of jealousy, it didn’t happen overnight.” — Bailey Jackson
  104. “She had loved him for such a long time, she thought. How was it that she did now know him at all?” ― Cassandra Clare

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