What matters is not how well you can avoid trouble, but how you cope with trouble when it comes.
Paul AusterRead
Fools may our scorn, not envy, raise. For envy is a kind of praise.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Envy is a reaction that highlights the value of what you possess; those who scorn you are misguided.
In this quote by John Gay, the author suggests that envy is not a negative feeling but rather a form of admiration, indicating that the envied person possesses qualities worth desiring. This realization allows individuals to view scorn from others as a sign of their own worth, rather than a source of disappointment or negativity.
Themes
EnvyPraiseScornAdmirationWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
During a motivational speech, one might use this quote to emphasize the positive aspect of being envied.
Similar quotes
The stars had only one task: they taught me how to read. They taught me I had a language in heaven and another language on earth.
Mahmoud DarwishRead
A thousand fearful images and dire suggestions glance along the mind when it is moody and discontented with itself. Command them to stand and show themselves, and you presently assert the power of reason over imagination.
Walter ScottRead
Be sure that someday you'll praise and thank God for your unanswered prayers that once you had wept for them.
Shams TabriziRead
But it is a blessed provision of nature that at times like these, as soon as a man's mercury has got down to a certain point there comes a revulsion, and he rallies. Hope springs up, and cheerfulness along with it, and then he is in good shape to do something for himself, if anything can be done.
Mark TwainRead
To young people born under the weird planet of the SAT, intelligence was equated with agility, with raw acuity. It produced a certain sort of person of which I was a typical specimen: the mental contortionist, able to rise to almost every challenge placed before him, except the challenge of real self-knowledge.
Walter KirnRead