"Envy has displaced gratitude"

From Patrick Kurp's post yesterday:

I encountered this in [Sir Thomas] Browne’s “A Letter to a Friend” (written in 1665, published posthumously in 1690):

Let Age, not Envy, draw Wrinkles on thy Cheeks: be content to be envied, but envy not, Emulation may be plausible, and Indignation allowable; but admit no Treaty with that Passion which no Circumstance can make good. A Displacency at the good of others, because they enjoy it, altho we do not want it, is an absurd Depravity, sticking fast unto humane Nature from its primitive Corruption ...

Again: “which no Circumstance can make good.” Politics today seems driven overwhelmingly by envy. People want what others have, whether or not they worked for them or otherwise deserve to possess them. Envy has displaced gratitude for what is already ours.

Patrick Kurp, "An Absurd Depravity," Anecdotal Evidence, June 23, 2026.