Alain de Botton Quotes

Craig said the problem with things is that everyone is always comparing everyone with everyone

Washington is gripped by crab-in-the-bucket syndrome. And there's no cure in sight. Put a single crab in an uncovered bucket, and it will find a way to climb up and out on its own. Put a dozen crabs in a bucket, and 11 will fight with all their might to pull down the striver who attempts escape.

Actors always think that others are getting more work than them. In my case, they usually are.

We are bred to compare ourselves to the next person, to what they have and what they have accomplished.

If we only wanted to be happy, it would be easy; but we want to be happier than other people, and that is almost always difficult, since we think them happier than they are.

Glamour cannot exist without personal social envy being a common and widespread emotion.

When are four women ever happy for another woman getting something they'd love to have? Tell me that.

There's always going to be someone with a bigger toy than yours.

The grain is always greener in foreign fields, and the flocks of our neighbor have richer yields

There is always going to be someone more successful, richer, better looking, or with a nicer car.

I think with social media and Instagram, people are able to see what's over the fence of everyone else, and it all seems within reach.

I have been that actor who's watched peers and thought, 'God, they're doing well. I'll never get there.'

I'm sure that it's a universal experience, but I wonder if it gets exacerbated more in Los Angeles, where people are constantly looking over at the other people, going, 'Why don't I have that? I want that. Their table looks warmer.'

Success is somebody else's failure.

Envy is ever joined with the comparing of a man's self; and where there is no comparison, no envy.

Jealousy is comparison. And we have been taught to compare, we have been conditioned to compare, always compare. Somebody else has a better house, somebody else has a more beautiful body, somebody else has more money, somebody else has a more charismatic personality. Compare, go on comparing yourself with everybody else you pass by, and great jealousy will be the outcome; it is the by-product of the conditioning for comparison.

Jealousy is in a manner just and reasonable, as it tends to preserve a good which belongs, or which we believe belongs to us, on the other hand envy is a fury which cannot endure the happiness of others.

It's never your successful friends posting the inspirational quotes

We seldom require more to the happiness of the present hour than to surpass him that stands next before us.

No one wants to be excelled by his relatives.

Every time a friend succeeds, I die a little.

You always envy someone else's life and, as a woman, you're always comparing your life to someone else's life.

There's always something about your success that displeases even your best friends.

It is the usual consolation of the envious, if they cannot maintain their superiority, to represent those by whom they are surpassed as inferior to some one else.

Those who succeed can't forgive a fellow for being a failure, and those who fail can't forgive him for being a success.