SECTION 10. Envy is natural to man; and still, it is at once a vice
and a source of misery.[22] We should treat it as the enemy of our happiness, and stifle it like an evil thought. This is the advice given by Seneca; as he well puts it, we shall be pleased with what we have, if we avoid the self-torture of comparing our own lot with some other and happier one—nostra nos sine comparatione delectent; nunquam erit felix quem torquebit felicior.[23] And again, quum adspexeris quot te antecedent, cogita quot sequantur[24]—if a great many people appear to be better off than yourself, think how many there are in a worse position. It is a fact that if real calamity comes upon us, the most effective consolation—though it springs from the same source as envy—is just the thought of greater misfortunes than ours; and the next best is the society of those who are in the same luck as we—the partners of our sorrows.
22 ([a]return])
[ Envy shows how unhappy people are; and their constant attention to what others do and leave undone, how much they are bored.]
23 ([a]return])
[ De Ira: iii., 30.]