Envy is the tax which all distinction must pay.
Interpretation
Envy is a natural consequence of being distinguished or outstanding in some way.
This quote by Ralph Waldo Emerson suggests that achieving distinction, whether through talent, intelligence, or success, inevitably attracts envy from others. Envy can be seen as a 'tax' that those who stand out must pay, indicating that recognition and achievement often come with negative feelings from others who feel inferior or lesser.
In practice
In a motivational speech about handling success, you might quote this to highlight the challenges that come with achievement.
It is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup or cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms that make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of every man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to do.
Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.
Men cease to interest us when we find their limitations
Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a good head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem confidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakeably meant for his ear.
The world belongs to the energetic.
Hast thou named all the birds without a gun?
Now, God be praised, that to believing souls gives light in darkness, comfort in despair.
You have this idea that you'd better keep working otherwise people will forget. And that was dangerous.
If he [Thomas Edison] had a needle to find in a haystack, he would not stop to reason where it was most likely to be, but would proceed at once with the feverish diligence of a bee, to examine straw after straw until he found the object of his search. ... [J]ust a little theory and calculation would have saved him ninety percent of his labor.
The firmness with which the (American) people have withstood the... abuses of the press, the discernment they have manifested between truth and falsehood, show that they may safely be trusted to hear everything true and false and to form a correct judgment between them.
Cherish your mistakes, and you won't keep making them over and over again. It's the same with heartbreaks and girls and everything else. Cherish them, and they'll put some wealth in you.
Don't forget: one of the saddest things in life is wasted talent.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.