Proverbs in many languages agree that the greatest damage done by the envious man is to himself. Envy is described as an utterly destructive, uncreat… - Helmut Schoeck

Perhaps the utopia of equality, of a society redeemed from envy, exerts so strong an attraction upon intellectuals, generation after generation, because it promises always to remain a utopia, and perpetually to legitimize new demands. Nothing could be worse for the utopian intellectual than a society where there was nothing left to criticize.

I have no doubt that one of the most important motives for joining an egalitarian political movement is this anxious sense of guilt: ‘Let us set up a society in which no one is envious.’

The best means of protection against the envy of a neighbor is to drive a Rolls-Royce instead of a car only slightly better than his...overwhelming and astounding inequality arouses far less envy than minimal inequality.