Envy
idea · 6 works · 6 mentions · 9 anchored passages
envy · the envious · jealous · jealousy · phthonos
in the texts
Nicomachean Ethics
The vice of excess in pain at others' good fortune, opposed to Righteous Indignation.
the jealous man exceeds him and is pained by all the good fortune of others;
Letters
Envy, repeatedly named as a destructive civic force among the Athenians that obstructs fair recognition and undermines gratitude toward loyal statesmen and their families.
one reason is that I am afraid of jealousy, in the face of which it is useless to speak the truth;
In short, it is a reproach common to all citizens, men of Athens, and a misfortune of the State as a whole, that envy should be thought to be stronger among you than the grace of gratitude for services performed, and the more so because envy is a disease but the Graces have been assigned a place among the gods.
Nemean
The destructive force of envy, personified as an active agent that clings to and destroys noble men, most vividly in Ajax's downfall.
Envy devoured the son of Telamon, throwing him onto his own sword.
and envy always clings to the noble, and has no quarrel with worse men.
Pythian
The abstract concept of envy (phthonos), discussed as an inevitable companion of success and as self-destructive in the envious.
Nevertheless, since envy is better than pity, do not abandon fine deeds!
they pull the line too tight and plant a painful wound in their own heart before they get what they are scheming for.
On Benefits
The state of complaining resentment that Seneca holds to be incompatible with thankfulness.
3 But no man can at once envy and give thanks, because to envy belongs to the complaining and the sad, to give thanks to the rejoicing.
Memorabilia
A vice characterized as distress over the prosperity of friends.
Considering the nature of Envy, he found it to be a kind of pain, not, however, at a friend’s misfortune, nor at an enemy’s good fortune, but the envious are those only who are annoyed at their friends’ successes.