Envy, among other ingredients, has a mixture of love of justice in it. We are more angry at undeserved than at deserved good fortune.

Hazlitt suggests that envy is not purely petty malice but can contain a moral element: a sensitivity to fairness. What often provokes resentment is not simply another person’s success, but the sense that it is unearned or disproportionate to merit. By distinguishing “undeserved” from “deserved” good fortune, he reframes envy as partly an instinct for justice—an emotional protest against perceived inequity. The remark also implies a social psychology: admiration or acceptance is easier when prosperity appears warranted, while arbitrary luck or favoritism invites anger. Hazlitt’s point complicates moral judgments about envy by showing how it can arise from ethical expectations as well as self-interest.