This site is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Alan William Smolowe who gave birth to the creation of this database.
When I look upon the tombs of the great, every emotion of envy dies in me; when I read the epitaphs of the beautiful, every inordinate desire goes out; when I meet with the grief of parents upon a tombstone, my heart melts with compassion; when I see the tombs of the parents themselves, I consider the vanity of grieving for those whom we must quickly follow; when I see kings lying by those who deposed them, when I consider rival wits placed side by side, or the men that divided the world with their contests and disputes, I reflect with sorrow and astonishment on the little competitions, factions, and debates of mankind. When I read the several dates of the tombs, of some that died yesterday, and some six hundred years ago, I consider that great Day when we shall all of us be contemporaries, and make our appearance together.
Appearance | Day | Desire | Envy | Grief | Heart | Little | Lying | Men | Parents | Sorrow | World |
Leonardo da Vinci, fully Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci
Wherever good fortune enters, envy lays siege to the place and attacks it; and when it departs, sorrow and repentance remain behind.
Envy | Fortune | Good | Repentance | Sorrow |
Mark Twain, pen name of Samuel Langhorne Clemens
Pity is for the living, envy is for the dead.
Envy |
Metastasio, aka Pietro Petastasio, pseudonymn for Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi NULL
If every man's internal care Were written on his brow, How many would our pity share Who raise our envy now?
Mitch Albom, fully Mitchell David "Mitch" Albom
If you're trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down on you anyhow. And if you're trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
Morrie Schwartz, fully Morris "Morrie" S. Schwartz
If you’re trying to show off for people at the top, forget it. They will look down at you anyhow. And if you’re trying to show off for people at the bottom, forget it. They will only envy you. Status will get you nowhere. Only an open heart will allow you to float equally between everyone.
Such is the force of envy and ill-nature, that the failings of good men are more published to the world than their good deeds; and one fault of a well-deserving man shall meet with more reproaches than all his virtues will with praise.
Envy | Fault | Force | Good | Man | Men | Will | World | Fault |
Nicholas Boileau-Despréaux, sometimes Nicholas Desperaux or Nicolas Boileau
When we envy another, we make their virtue our vice.
And then there is the Tenth Commandment. 'Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything that is thy neighbor's.' The Ten Commandments are God's basic rules about how we should live — a brief list of sacred obligations and solemn moral precepts. The first nine Commandments concern theological principles and social law. But then, right at the end, is 'Don't envy your buddy's cow.' How did that make the top ten? What's it doing there? Why would God, with just ten things to tell Moses, choose as one of those things jealousy about the starter mansion with in-ground pool next door? Yet think how important the Tenth Commandment is to a community, to a nation, indeed to a presidential election. If you want a mule, if you want a pot roast, if you want a cleaning lady, don't be a jerk and whine about what the people across the street have — go get your own. The Tenth Commandment sends a message to all the jerks who want redistribution of wealth, higher taxes, more government programs, more government regulation, more government, less free enterprise, and less freedom. And the message is clear and concise: Go to hell.
Envy | Government | Important | Jealousy | People | Principles | Right | Sacred | Government | Think |
Petrarch, anglicized from Italian name Francesco Petrarca NULL
Believe me, many things are attributed to gravity and wisdom which are really due to incapacity and sloth. Men often despise what they despair of obtaining. It is in the very nature of ignorance to scorn what it cannot understand, and to desire to keep others from attaining what it cannot reach. Hence the false judgments upon matters of which we know nothing, by which we evince our envy quite as clearly as our stupidity.
Desire | Despair | Despise | Envy | Ignorance | Men | Nature | Wisdom |
Plutarch, named Lucius Mestrius Plutarchus after becoming Roman citizen NULL
Of all the disorders in the soul, envy is the only one no one confesses to.
Envy |
Pythagoras, aka Pythagoras of Samos or Pythagoras the Samian NULL
Envy has been, is, and shall be, the destruction of many. What is there, that Envy hath not defamed, or Malice left undefiled? Truly, no good thing.
Robert Bridges, fully Robert Seymour Bridges
There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.