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.
- “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
- “The envious die not once, but as oft as the envied win applause.” – Baltasar Gracián
- “Moral indignation is jealousy with a halo.” ― H.G. Wells
- “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.” ― William Penn
- “A sound heart is the life of the flesh: but envy the rottenness of the bones.” – Proverbs 14:30
- “Rust consumes iron and envy consumes itself.” – Danish Proverb
- “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn’t change the heart of others– it only changes yours.” ― Shannon Alder
- “ Don’t waste time on jealousy. Sometimes you’re ahead, sometimes you’re behind.” ― Mary Schmich
- “Our envy always lasts longer than the happiness of those we envy.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
- “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
- “Isn’t it kind of silly to think that tearing someone else down builds you up?” ― Sean Covey
- “You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars.” ― Gary Allan
- “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
- “Do not overrate what you have received, nor envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.” – Buddha
- “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
- “You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.” ― Margaret Atwood
- “Often those that criticise others reveal what he himself lacks.” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “I get jealous because I am afraid that someone is going to make you happier than I do.” – Frank Ocean
- “Jealousy is the jaundice of the soul.” – John Dryden
- “Envy is more irreconcilable than hatred.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
- “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
- “It is jealousy that leads people to tarnish you.” – Priyadarshan
- “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
- “Keep yourselves far from envy; it eateth up and taketh away good actions, like as fire eateth up and burneth wood.” – Muhammad
- “Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man’s self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.” – Francis Bacon
- “Envy is like a fly that passes all the body’s sounder parts, and dwells upon the sores.” – Arthur Chapman
- “Even if people pretend that they’re OK with it, jealousy can eat people alive.” – Phoebe Fox
- “Jealousy—Tormenting yourself, for fear you should be tormented by another.” – Paul Chatfield
- “Never waste jealousy on a real man: it is the imaginary man that supplants us all in the long run.” – George Bernard Shaw
- “In jealousy there is more self-love than love.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
- “Envy is the art of counting the other fellow’s blessings instead of your own.” – Harold Coffin
- “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.” – Fulton J. Sheen
- “It’s a completely useless emotion – jealousy. I don’t go there.” – Joy Behar
- “Jealousy eats away at relationships like acid. It’s corrosive and destructive. It destroys trust and intimacy.” – Dr. Gary Chapman
- “He that is not jealous is not in love.” – Augustine
- “The jealous are troublesome to others, but a torment to themselves.” – William Penn
- “Jealousy is, I think, the worst of all faults because it makes a victim of both parties.” – Gene Tierney
- “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
- “Jealousy is the worst trait in any person.” – Adam DeVine
- “Jealousy is no more than feeling alone against smiling enemies.” – Elizabeth Bowen
- “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
- “The knives of jealousy are honed on details.” – Ruth Rendell
- “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
- “Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.” – François de la Rochefoucauld
- “Jealousy is unavoidable – it’s part of the price we pay for intimacy.” – Rachel Simmons
- “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
- “Humans are suspicious and jealous creatures. When they see something perfect, they want to find a flaw.” – Gosho Aoyama
- To jealousy, nothing is more frightful than laughter.” – Francoise Sagan
- “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
- “Jealousy is the great exaggerator.”- Johann Christoph Friedrich von Schiller
- “Jealousy is an awkward homage which inferiority renders to merit.”- de Puixieux
- “Jealousy injures us with the dagger of self-doubt.” – Terri Guillemets
- “Jealousy is the fear or apprehension of superiority: envy our uneasiness under it.” – William Shenstone
- “Jealousy is bred in doubts. When those doubts change into certainties, then the passion either ceases or turns absolute madness.” – Francois de La Rochefoucauld
- “Jealousy is always born with love, but does not always die with it.” – François de la Rochefoucauld, Maxims
- “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
- “Jealousy would be far less torturous if we understood that love is a passion entirely unrelated to our merits.” – Paul Eldridge
- “Jealousy is never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.” – George Eliot
- “Jealousy lives upon doubts. It becomes madness or ceases entirely as soon as we pass from doubt to certainty.” –Francois de la Rochefoucauld
- “Insecure people only eclipse your sun because they’re jealous of your daylight and tired of their dark, starless nights.” ― Shannon L. Alder
- “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
- “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
- “A competent and self-confident person is incapable of jealousy in anything. Jealousy is invariably a symptom of neurotic insecurity.” – Robert A. Heinlein
- “Never hate jealous people. They are jealous because they think you are better than them.” — Paulo Coelho.
- “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
- “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
- “O! Beware, my lord, of jealousy; It is the green-eyed monster which doth mock the meat it feeds on.” – William Shakespeare
- “Jealousy, that dragon which slays love under the pretence of keeping it alive.” – Havelock Ellis
- “Trifles light as air, are to the jealous confirmations strong as proofs of holy writ.” – William Shakespeare, Othello
- “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
- “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
- “Surrounded by the flames of jealousy, the jealous one winds up, like the scorpion, turning the poisoned sting against himself.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
- “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
- “Whoever envies another confesses his superiority.” – Samuel Johnson
- “Never hate jealous people. They are jealous because they think you are better than them.” — Paulo Coelho
- “Envy is the most stupid of vices, for there is no single advantage to be gained from it.” – Honore de Balzac
- “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
- “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
- “Cheating is directly linked to lack of intelligence, insecurity, low self-esteem, and an overall sense of unhappiness with one’s own life!”
- “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
- “Envy lurks at the bottom of the human heart like a viper in its hole.” – Honoré de Balzac
- “Envy is ignorance.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
- “Famous Harry Potter,” said Malfoy. “Can’t even go to a bookshop without making the front page.” ― J.K. Rowling
- “The worst part of success is trying to find someone who is happy for you.” – Bette Midler
- “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
- “More men die of jealousy than of cancer.” -Joseph P. Kennedy
- “Jealousy is a disease. Get well soon.” — Paris Hilton
- “Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.” – Mark Twain
- “The only thing more frustrating than slanderers is those foolish enough to listen to them.” ― Criss Jami
- “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
- “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.”
- “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
- “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
- “There is no greater glory than love, nor any greater punishment than jealousy.” –Lope de Vega
- “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
- “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
- “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
- “Jealousy is just lack of self-confidence.”
- “A negative judgment gives you more satisfaction than praise, provided it smacks of jealousy.” -Jean Baudrillard
- “Jealousy is a strong emotion that can break any strong relationship.”
- “The jealous bring down the curse they fear upon their own heads.” – Dorothy Dix
- “Pure love allows no room for jealousy.”- James Lendall Basford (
- “If you’re suffering from problems of self-esteem or from constant bouts of jealousy, it didn’t happen overnight.” — Bailey Jackson
- “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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