Bitter Quotes

Memories, so sweet and bitter.. they had both nourished and devoured him for so many years. Until a time came when they began to fade, turning faint and blurred, only an ache to be quickly pushed away because it went to your heart. For what was the use of remembering all you had lost? ~ Cornelia Funke

Goethe died in 1832. As you know, Goethe was very active in science. In fact, he did some very good scientific work in plant morphology and mineralogy. But he was quite bitter at the way in which many scientists refused to grant him a hearing because he was a poet and therefore, they felt, he couldn't be serious. ~ Stephen Jay Gould

One thing that's certain: around the corner from every ugly thing, there's something really beautiful. If we stop at every bitter interaction; we'll never reach our destination. ~ Soledad O'Brien

Fairy Tales are born from our need for love and without romance the world is bitter. With love in your heart the world is always sweet. ~ Nanette Kinslow

I am obsessed. I believe this is what they call "getting taste of one's own medicine," and it's a bitter flavor. ~ Wendy Higgins

God knoweth best what is needful for us, and all that He does is for our good. If we knew how much He loves us, we should always be ready to receive equally and with indifference from His Hand the sweet and the bitter: all would please that came from Him. The sorest afflictions never appear intolerable, except when we see them in the wrong light. ~ Brother Lawrence

If words had flavors, hers would be bitter almonds and coffee grounds. ~ Jodi Picoult

For the first time she had dimly realized that only the hopeless are starkly sincere and that only the unhappy can either give or take sympathy
even some of the bitter and dangerous voluptuousness of misery. ~ Jean Rhys

They hate people and their stories; they have hated for so long and with such intensity that in the end the darkness enveloped their whole bodies until their shapes were no longer discernible. That is also why they are so difficult to defeat, because they can disappear into walls or into the ground or float up. They're ferocious and bloodthirsty, and if you're bitten by one you don't just die; a far more serious and terrible fate lies in store: you lose your imagination. (talking about shadows) ~ Fredrik Backman

We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth we find bitter. ~ Denis Diderot

there are others who are bitter and angry. ~ Joelle Charbonneau

To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart; -
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around -
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air -
Comes a still voice -
Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine etern ~ William Cullen Bryant

How often, in this cold and bitter world, is the warm heart thrown back upon itself! Cold, careless, are we of another's grief; we wrap ourselves in sullen selfishness. ~ Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Those who march with us will certainly face abuse, misunderstanding, bitter animosity, and possibly the ferocity of struggle and of danger. In return, we can only offer to them the deep belief that they are fighting that a great land may live. ~ Oswald Mosley

Native Soil

There's
Nobody simpler than us, or with
more pride, or fewer tears.
(1922)

Our hearts don't wear it as an amulet,
it doesn't sob beneath the poet's hand,
nor irritate the wounds we can't forget
in our bitter sleep. It's not the Promised Land.
Our souls don't calculate its worth
as a commodity to be sold and bought;
sick, and poor, and silent on this earth,
often we don't give it a thought.
Yes, for us it's the dirt on our galoshes,
yes, for us it's the grit between our teeth.
Dust, and we grind and crumble and crush it,
the gentle and unimplicated earth.
But we'll lie in it, become its weeds and flowers,
so unembarrassedly we call it - ours. ~ Anna Akhmatova

Never become bitter just because you were rejected by men ~ Sunday Adelaja

My Dearest Allie. I couldn't sleep last night because I know that it's over between us. I'm not bitter anymore, because I know that what we had was real. And if in some distant place in the future we see each other in our new lives, I'll smile at you with joy and remember how we spent the summer beneath the trees, learning from each other and growing in love. The best love is the kind that awakens the soul and makes us reach for more, that plants a fire in our hearts and brings peace to our minds, and that's what you've given me. That's what I hope to give to you forever. I love you. I'll be seeing you. Noah ~ Nicholas Sparks

Marya watched from the upper floor as once again the birds gathered in the great oak tree, sniping and snapping for the last autumn nuts, stolen from squirrels and hidden in bark-cracks, which every winged creature knows are the most bitter of all nuts, like old sorrows sitting heavy on the tongue. ~ Catherynne M Valente

This freedom of which men speak, for which they fight, seems to some people a perilous thing. It has to be earned at a bitter cost and then - it has to be lived with. For freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. ~ Eleanor Roosevelt

I think falling in love should come with a warning label: CAUTION - side effects may include breaking up, accompanied by heartache, severe mood swings, withdrawal from people and life itself, wasted hours obsessing over bitter reflections, a need to destroy something (preferably something expensive that shatters), uncontrollable tear ducts, stress, a loss of appetite (Cheetos and Dr. Pepper exempt), a bleak and narrow outlook on the future, and an overall hatred of everyone and everything (especially all the happy couples you see strolling hand-in-hand, placed on your path only to exacerbate your isolation and misery). All above reactions will be intensified with the consumption of one or more alcoholic beverages. ~ Katie Kacvinsky

I'll see if I can't make the bitter waters sweet by the intensity of love I bear you ~ Oscar Wilde

Every few days the sea delivers us gifts, and I am convinced that there is something of the divine nature in this process. Often I have prayed for a jacket, a bucket, or a handsaw, but instead I find one single flip-flop. Many times it has left my heart bitter, but then I find some useful purpose for my found treasure. Maybe the sea doesn't give me what I want, but what I need. ~ Jennifer Arnett

My Hamlet was about as alienated as you can get. Mine was a bitter and lonely prince. Valid, I think, but maybe tough to root for. I think that romance was missing. ~ Stephen Lang

The loneliest, most down-on-his-luck person can have a dog who adores him. The most bitter, sour person can light up with joy when he sees his dog. It is magical, and as 'The Dog Master' reveals, it is biological - we evolved together. ~ Bruce Cameron

Even though the money is great and the fame is great, you still have a lot of disenfranchised young men that are participating in the NFL that are not very happy. A lot of them are very bitter. A lot them are very angry. So many of them have had no fathers and no home life, and basically, no education. ~ Jim Brown

People say you should read your criticism because it will make you a better person but it doesn't. It just makes you a sad bitter old showbiz nightmare. ~ Jo Brand

She swallowed it. So bitter.
"Vile," she said. "Vile."
"I know, but it helps. Trust me. I know."
"Trust you," she said. "Hah."
"Clearly you are not dying."
"No. Devil won't take me."
The low chuckle again. "Then we're all safe. ~ Loretta Chase

How bitter it is to reap a harvest of evil for good that you have done!
[Lat., Ut acerbum est, pro benefactis quom mali messem metas!] ~ Plautus

You shall love beyond yourselves some day! So first, learn to love. And for that you have to drink the bitter cup of your love. ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

There's something unnatural about a woman finding babies or, more specifically, conversation about babies, boring. They'll think she's bitter, jealous, lonely. But she's also bored of everybody telling her how lucky she is, what with all that sleep and all that freedom and spare time, the ability to go on dates or head off to Paris at a moments notice. It sounds like they're consoling her, and she resents this and feels patronized by it. ~ David Nicholls

Recent studies found bitter melon an "effective anti-diabetic" as powerful as pharmaceuticals in helping to regulate blood sugar. ~ Dan Buettner

A life directed chiefly toward the fulfillment of personal desires will sooner or later always lead to bitter disappointment. ~ Albert Einstein

Tis solace making baubles, ay, and sport.
Himself peeped late, eyed Prosper at his books
Careless and lofty, lord now of the isle:
Vexed, 'stitched a book of broad leaves, arrow-shaped,
Wrote thereon, he knows what, prodigious words;
Has peeled a wand and called it by a name;
Weareth at whiles for an enchanter's robe
The eyed skin of a supple oncelot;
And hath an ounce sleeker than youngling mole,
A four-legged serpent he makes cower and couch,
Now snarl, now hold its breath and mind his eye,
And saith she is Miranda and my wife:
'Keeps for his Ariel a tall pouch-bill crane
He bids go wade for fish and straight disgorge;
Also a sea-beast, lumpish, which he snared,
Blinded the eyes of, and brought somewhat tame,
And split its toe-webs, and now pens the drudge
In a hole o' the rock and calls him Caliban;
A bitter heart that bides its time and bites. ~ Robert Browning

The good news was that he wasn't sixteen anymore and he had this, his art. His food. And if this dinner continued to go the way it was going, if Mrs. Raje stood by her word and gave DJ the contract for her son's fund-raising dinner next month based on tonight's success... well, then they'd be fine.
Mrs. Raje had been more impressed thus far. Everything from the steamed momos to the dum biryani had turned out just so. The mayor of San Francisco had even asked to speak to DJ after tasting the California blue crab with bitter coconut cream and tucked DJ's card into his wallet.
Only dessert remained, and dessert was DJ's crowning glory, his true love. With sugar he could make love to taste buds, make adult humans sob.
The reason Mina Raje had given him, a foreigner and a newbie, a shot at tonight was his Arabica bean gelato with dark caramel. DJ had created the dessert for her after spending a week researching her. Not just her favorite restaurants, but where she shopped, how she wore her clothes, what made her laugh, even the perfume she wore and how much. The taste buds drew from who you were. How you reacted to taste as a sense was a culmination of how you processed the world, the most primal form of how you interacted with your environment.
It was DJ's greatest strength and weakness, needing to know what exact note of flavor unfurled a person. His need to find that chord and strum it was bone deep. ~ Sonali Dev

How bitter they cry in need, those who refuse to help others in trouble! ~ Bangambiki Habyarimana

If you're brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting, which can be anything from your house to bitter, old resentments, and set out on a truth-seeking journey, either externally or internally, and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher and if you are prepared, most of all, to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself, then the truth will not be withheld from you. ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

What's the advantage of fear or the benefit of regret or the bonus of granting misery a foothold even if death is embracing you? My old abbot used to say, "Life is only precious if you wish it to be." I look at it like the last bite of a wonderful meal. Do you enjoy it, or does the knowledge that there is no more to follow make it so bitter that you would ruin the experience? - Myron on facing death ~ Michael J. Sullivan

The best way to get the sweet out of children and escape the bitter is to have them by proxy. ~ Ellis Peters

Every bitter joule of rage had been converted into speed. She was empty. There was no pain. The air whistled past her ears. She listened intently. That silent music was all there was. It was the sound of the universe showing her mercy. ~ Chris Cleave

But later that night, as I brush my teeth in the bathroom, I overhear Baba and Thaya Jaan talking in the guest room next door. "

All this music all the time. You shouldn't let Amina do so much singing and piano," Thaya Jaan says.

I stop brushing and strain to hear every word, trying to follow.

"But, Bhai Jaan, she is so talented. Her music teachers say she is really quite gifted."

"Yes, but music is forbidden in Islam. It's a waste of time and has no benefit. Instead of filling her head with music, she should focus on memorizing Quran."

The toothpaste suddenly tastes bitter. I spit it out and wait to hear what Baba will say. Surely he'll say the things he's always told me, like how music makes him feel closer to God and that my talent is a gift from Allah.

But all Baba says is, "Yes, Bhai Jaan," and then he stays quiet.

I am numb. Is Thaya Jaan right? Am I doing something wrong? ~ Hena Khan

That's how life is. It's supposed to be bitter, but you have to sweeten it. You have to add just the right components and make it a treat. You have to enjoy every second of it. ~ Zainab T. Khan

Thinking of what Jesus did NOT say from the cross: not a bitter, angry, unkind, whining, profane, unnecessary word. There is none like Him! ~ Nancy Leigh DeMoss

The bitter dregs of Fortune's cup to drain. ~ Homer

What we learned here is love tastes bitter when it's gone. ~ Rob Thomas

The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country ... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away ... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing. ~ Edward Everett

The key to your happiness is to own your slippers, own who you are, own how you look, own your family, own the talents you have, and own the ones you don't. If you keep saying your slippers aren't yours, then you'll die searching, you'll die bitter, always feeling you were promised more. Not only our actions, but also our omissions, become our destiny. ~ Abraham Verghese

From bitter experience she knew that pictures thrown on the screen of her imagination could seem much more unnerving and terrible than the actual facts. ~ Hannah Hurnard

History
its what those bitter old men write. ~ Jackie Kennedy

There are things a man can't undo, that a man can't disavow. But time has a way of making one see what is important, what is necessary and how change isn't always the bitter potion it is made out to be. – previous Duke of Hollindrake (grandfather to Thatcher, the tenth Duke of Hollindrake {hero}) ~ Elizabeth Boyle

I had been poor myself, and knew what awaited him in the world. He would find that they who fawned on him most would be first to turn their backs on him now. He would be rudely disillusioned regarding the fables of love and friendship, and would become cynical, bitter, and sceptical of there being any disinterested good in human nature. ~ Miles Franklin

Duty is bitter to taste but sweet to drink ~ Rosamund Hodge

She locked herself in her room. She needed time to get used to her maimed consciousness, her poor lopped life, before she could walk steadily to the place allotted her. A new searching light had fallen on her husband's character, and she could not judge him leniently: the twenty years in which she had believed in him and venerated him by virtue of his concealments came back with particulars that made them seem an odious deceit. He had married her with that bad past life hidden behind him, and she had no faith left to protest his innocence of the worst that was imputed to him. Her honest ostentatious nature made the sharing of a merited dishonor as bitter as it could be to any mortal.
But this imperfectly taught woman, whose phrases and habits were an odd patchwork, had a loyal spirit within her. The man whose prosperity she had shared through nearly half a life, and who had unvaryingly cherished her - now that punishment had befallen him it was not possible to her in any sense to forsake him. There is a forsaking which still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. She knew, when she locked her door, that she should unlock it ready to go down to her unhappy husband and espouse his sorrow, and say of his guilt, I will mourn and not reproach. But she needed time to gather up her strength; she needed to sob out her farewell to all the gladness and pride of her life. When she had resolved to go dow ~ George Eliot

She was riding a bear! And the Aurora was swaying above them in golden arcs and loops, and all around was the bitter Arctic cold and the immense silence of the North. ~ Philip Pullman

Someday, emerging at last from the violent insight,
let me sing out jubilation and praise to assenting angels.
Let not even one of the clearly-struck hammers of my heart
fail to sound because of a slack, a doubtful,
or a broken string. Let my joyfully streaming face
make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise
and blossom. How dear you will be to me then, you nights
of anguish. Why didn't I kneel more deeply to accept you,
inconsolable sisters, and surrendering, lose myself
in your loosened hair. How we squander our hours of pain.
How we gaze beyond them into the bitter duration
to see if they have an end. Though they are really
our winter-enduring foliage, our dark evergreen,
our season in our inner year
, not only a season
in time
, but are place and settlement, foundation and soil
and home. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

How you brew your life is how it's gonna taste on your tongue. You have the choice to make it bitter or sweeter. It all depend on the actions that you take day in day out. ~ Israelmore Ayivor

I tasted the salt on my own lips, and the bitter taste of blood on his. It was a desperate kiss, the sort of kiss that marks a lovers' parting, a kiss of sorrow and regret and a kind of blind and wordless promise. I would have risen up when it was finished, but he held me close, his hand stroking my hair. "I'll hurt your chest," I protested, but he shook his head. "I am past pain," he lied, "and I've always had a fancy to die in my lover's arms. 'Tis most romantic. ~ Susanna Kearsley

In that way Vinteuil's phrase, like some theme, say, in Tristan, which represents to us also a certain acquisition of sentiment, has espoused our mortal state, had endued a vesture of humanity that was affecting enough. Its destiny was linked, for the future, with that of the human soul, of which it was one of the special, the most distinctive ornaments. Perhaps it is not-being that is the true state, and all our dream of life is without existence; but, if so, we feel that it must be that these phrases of music, these conceptions which exist in relation to our dream, are nothing either. We shall perish, but we have for our hostages these divine captives who shall follow and share our fate. And death in their company is something less bitter, less inglorious, perhaps even less certain. ~ Marcel Proust

She began to think of all the people in Belfast who were drinking or drugging themselves into bearable insensibility that night. People would be hitting other people in the face with broken bottles. People were avowing and making love to people for whom they truly cared nothing; other people were screaming hatred at those whom they really did love. People were destroying things, daubing walls with paint and breaking up telephone boxes; joy-riding stolen cars into stone walls. In hospitals and homes, people were watching others dying, hoping and praying that the inevitable would not happen, while other people were planning murder. People elsewhere were trying to commit suicide, fumbling with change for the gas meter or emptying brown plastic bottles of their pills and tablets, which were bitter and dry in the mouth.

And there are, she thought, there must be, people who think as I do. ~ Deirdre Madden

And as we glided across the ice toward Fingerbone, we would become aware of the darkness, too close to us, like a presence in a dream. The comfortable yellow lights of the town were then the only comfort there was in the world, and there were not many of them. If every house in Fingerbone were to fall before our eyes, snuffing every light, the event would touch our senses as softly as a shifting among embers, and then the bitter darkness would step nearer. ~ Marilynne Robinson

The community knows that the fundamental questions of life can only be looked at in a spirit of peace and inner freedom. Nobody can force anyone else to love and to walk to freedom. Militants for a cause will tend to be organized for a struggle which they hope to win; they will seek to impose their way aggressively. Frequently they seek outward change more than inward change.

. . . As long as there are fears and prejudices in the human heart, there will be war and bitter injustice. It is only when hearts are healed, and become loving and open, that the great political problems will be solved. . . . As fears and prejudices diminish, and trust in God and others grows, the community can radiate and witness to a style and quality of life which will bring a solution to the troubles of our world.

The response to war is to live like brothers and sisters. The response to injustice is to share. The response to despair is a limitless trust and hope. The response to prejudice and hatred is forgiveness. To work for community is to work for humanity. To work for peace in community, through acceptance of others as they are, and through constant forgiveness, is to work for peace in the world and for true political solutions; it is to work for the Kingdom of God. ~ Jean Vanier

From the heart of this fountain of delights wells up some bitter taste to choke them even amid the flowers. ~ Lucretius

Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. ~ Charles Buxton

I think right now we need to look back at the founding values of our country. Rise above partisanship, be less bitter when it comes to important matters that have to be solved. ~ Walter Isaacson

What did Saturday's used to taste like? Like eggs and fried ham and the bitter smell of hair in heavy rollers. Like long quiet hours and making up after a fight. Like ointment and bruising. Like waiting, especially, for something - anything - to happen. ~ Lauren Oliver

To be of great wit and conversational powers, and simultaneously strong and serious and silent. To be generous and open and self-sacrificing, yet to be somewhat mysterious and sensitive and even a little bitter with melancholy. To be both light and dark. To harmonize this, to melt all this down into a single man - ah, there was something to be done. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

Losing leaves a bitter taste that lingers long after the sweetness of victory has been forgotten. ~ Michael J. Sullivan

Even in winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel. ~ Jim Butcher

I got used to birds: small black birds flying up from behind a building like God had tossed up a handful of currants, birds squalling in the parking lot of the grocery store (drowning the hum of industrial refrigerators), chachalacas -brown robed nuns to the spangled disco dancer peacocks - cackling in the dust of our yard. I got used to the chatters, squeaks, squalls, peeps, calls that sounded like bitter laughter, whistles, flutes, calls that sounded like souls ascending to heaven. I got used to dust and flatness, to sunsets like pink water pouring from the sky, flooding the earth with orange soda. I got used to wind: the hot, cruel wind of afternoon, the merciful magnolia breeze of night. I got used to it. But then I had to go. ~ Kathleen Founds

You can't live the rest of your days feeling bitter and spiteful," David continued. "It'll eat you up inside and keep you from enjoying the good things that will come your way later on. And there will be good things, I promise you that. ~ Julianne MacLean

Once there was a moose, a very poor, thin, lonely moose who lived on a rocky hill where only bitter leaves grew and bushes with spiky branches. One day a red motor car drove past. In the backseat was
a grey gypsy dog wearing a gold earring. ~ Annie Proulx

I have been back in Paris for two weeks. Nothing new. Life is still bitter. ~ Camille Claudel

Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian Tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in one of them. ~ Oscar Wilde

Her smile grew bitter as desert brine. The gods may forgive Ista all day long. But if Ista does not forgive Ista, the gods may go hang themselves. ~ Lois McMaster Bujold

I must dedicate my life to teaching my people, for only education would make their lot less bitter, their latent power more strong. ~ Y. C. James Yen

Will you live your very last day,
The same way as you lived
Your first?

Will you cry, smile, laugh, and play -
The same way as you did following
Birth?

Will you still look at the world
Full of wonder, love, curiosity, and excitement?
Or will you be dark, bitter and cold,
Without a single drop
Of enlightenment?

Do you live your current days -
Feeling confused,
Depressed,
And AFRAID?

Or do you share your light
In the company
And service of others,
To synergize
Like we were
Made?

Will you live TODAY
With an unquenchable thirst for
Life?

Or,
Will you wait until your very last day -

Wishing you had just
ONE MORE DAY,

To go out and spend
Your time
RIGHT?



Suzy Kassem, Rise Up and Salute the Sun (2010) ~ Suzy Kassem

Love needs too much help, he said.
hate takes care of itself. ~ Charles Bukowski

The worst thing in the world is a bitter woman. That's one thing about your mother, she's never been bitter. ~ John Updike

How many times have you tried to talk to someone about something that matters to you, tried to get them to see it the way you do? And how many of those times have ended with you feeling bitter, resenting them for making you feel like your pain doesn't have any substance after all?

Like when you've split up with someone, and you try to communicate the way you feel, because you need to say the words, need to feel that somebody understands just how pissed off and frightened you feel. The problem is, they never do. "Plenty more fish in the sea," they'll say, or "You're better off without them," or "Do you want some of these potato chips?" They never really understand, because they haven't been there, every day, every hour. They don't know the way things have been, the way that it's made you, the way it has structured your world. They'll never realise that someone who makes you feel bad may be the person you need most in the world. They don't understand the history, the background, don't know the pillars of memory that hold you up. Ultimately, they don't know you well enough, and they never can. Everyone's alone in their world, because everybody's life is different. You can send people letters, and show them photos, but they can never come to visit where you live.

Unless you love them. And then they can burn it down. ~ Michael Marshall Smith

I loved him not; and yet, now he is gone,
I feel I am alone.
I check'd him while he spoke; yet, could he speak,
Alas! I would not check.
For reasons not to love him once I sought,
And wearied all my thought
To vex myself and him: I now would give
My love could he but live
Who lately lived for me, and, when he found
'Twas vain, in holy ground
He hid his face amid the shades of death.
I waste for him my breath
Who wasted his for me! but mine returns,
And this lorn bosom burns
With stifling heat, heaving it up in sleep,
And waking me to weep
Tears that had melted his soft heart: for years
Wept he as bitter tears.
Merciful God! such was his latest prayer,
These may she never share.
Quieter is his breath, his breast more cold,
Than daisies in the mould,
Where children spell, athwart the churchyard gate,
His name and life's brief date.
Pray for him, gentle souls, whoe'er you be,
And oh! pray too for me! ~ Walter Savage Landor

Your vile and bitter diatribes only serve to show how vile and bitter you must be. ~ C.S. Woolley

Wars about trifles are always bitter, especially among neighbours. When the differences are great, and the parties comparative strangers, men quarrel with courtesy. What combatants are ever so eager as two brothers? ~ Anthony Trollope

Young women looking after a children's summer camp, the ice-cream vendor's horn (his cart is a gondola on wheels, pushed by two handles), the displays of fruit, red melons with black pips, translucent, sticky grapes
all are props for the person who can no longer be alone. [1] But the cicadas' tender and bitter chirping, the perfume of water and stars one meets on September nights, the scented paths among the lentisks and the rosebushes, all these are signs of love for the person forced to be alone. [2]
[1] That is to say, everybody.
[2] That is to say, everybody. ~ Albert Camus

Still, Emma and I somehow struck up the type of friendship that lasts through primary school and high-school cliques, and our fathers are both doctors, although my dad is a GP and Dr Frank is a gynecologist (or, as Emma's two older brothers prefer to call him, a 'box mechanic'). In many ways, I think Emma and I balance each other out - at least, I hope we do. She forces me to be less cynical and bitter. And I'm on hand to remind her that, as long as she has two eyebrows rather than one, she has nothing to worry about. I text her back: 'Call me when you can plait them.'

- Cat ~ Rebecca Sparrow

We need dualities or opposites to appreciate, understand
and recognize value and distinction in our lives. If we did not have bitter, we could not appreciate sweet ... ~ I. Alan Appt

It is a bitter thought, how different a thing the Christianity of the world might have been, if the Christian faith had been adopted as the religion of the empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead of those of Constantine. ~ John Stuart Mill

I dore not always touch her, lest the kiss
Leave my lips charred. Yea, Lord, a little bliss,
Brief, bitter bliss, one hath for a great sin;
Nathless thou knowest how sweet a thing it is. ~ Algernon Charles Swinburne

Luck, you see, brings bitter friends. ~ John Steinbeck

Ho. What's so surprising? Asach aahe. It is what it is. Bambai is a bitter pill. Take large gulps of water and swallow it, or its bitterness will quickly begin to sphraidd in your mouth, making it impossible for you to gulp it down," said Laxmi. ~ Aditya Kripalani

Children aren't supposed to like dark chocolate. It's one of those bitter things that you are meant to acquire a taste for later in life, like olives and self-pity. ~ Emma Jane Unsworth

May the day of my birth perish. May it turn to darkness. May God above not care about it. May no light shine on it. May gloom and utter darkness claim it once more. May a cloud settle over it. May blackness overwhelm it. May thick darkness seize it. May it not be included among the days of the year nor be entered in any of the months. May that night be barren. May no shout of joy be heard in it. May those who curse days curse that day. May its morning stars become dark. May it wait for daylight in vain and not see the first rays of dawn, for it did not shut the doors of the womb on me to hide trouble from my eyes.
Why did I not perish at birth, and die as I came from the womb? Why were there knees to receive me and breasts that I might be nursed? For now I would be lying down in peace; I would be asleep and at rest.
Why is light given to those in misery, and life to the bitter of soul,
to those who long for death that does not come, who search for it more than for hidden treasure, who are filled with gladness and rejoice when they reach the grave?
For sighing has become my daily food; my groans pour out like water.What I feared has come upon me; what I dreaded has happened to me.I have no peace, no quietness; I have no rest, but only turmoil. ~ Anonymous

Nothing can alter the character of God. In the course of a human life, tastes and outlook and temper may change radically: a kind, equable man may turn bitter and crotchety: a man of good-will may grow cynical and callous. But nothing of this sort happens to the Creator. He never becomes less truthful, or merciful, or just, or good, than He used to be. ~ J.I. Packer

I couldn't really take a girl from Berlin to live in Leeds. I love it here. I miss the Yorkshire sense of humor and things like bitter and Yorkshire puddings, but I can still get my hands on salt 'n' vinegar crisps. ~ Sam Riley

Witness two scenes. In one, an angry, bitter man beats another man to death in an alley in the Gadrobi District. In the other, a man of vast wealth conspires with equally wealthy compatriots to raise yet again the price of grain, making the cost of simple bread so prohibitive that families starve, are led into lives of crime, and die young. Are both acts of violence? ~ Steven Erikson

He heard long ago, in a dream, that one day in every century Death takes on mortal flesh, better to comprehend what the lives she takes must feel like, to taste the bitter tang of mortality: that this is the price she must pay for being the divider of the living from all that has gone before, all that must come after. ~ Neil Gaiman

Being angry at the mistakes made by the heart will only leave you bitter. ~ Jamie Magee

If I thought about it, I could be bitter, but I don't feel like being bitter. Being bitter makes you immobile, and there's too much that I still want to do. ~ Richard Pryor

It'll be your first step towards healing, she'd said.
But it hurts too much to give her up, he'd argued.
Sometimes the medicine you take to recover is bitter. ~ Michelle Elaine Lowe

You don't want to spend your life searching for relevance," Iris said. "It will only lead to mistakes. Those mistakes will harden you and make you bitter. You'll start resenting people who have found happiness. You'll spread misery, hoping it will destroy your own, but it won't. If you have a chance to validate something within yourself, then do yourself a favor and take that chance. You don't want to live with a piece of your heart missing - it'll turn you into a monster. It's better to be the hero of your own story than to become the villain of someone else's."
"So you're saying I would find this Cornelia woman?" Bree asked.
"If it'll bring you peace, I recommend you do," Iris said. "Even if you don't get the answers you're looking for, you'll never be poisoned with regret. ~ Chris Colfer

Because being a fan is not all about the good times when victory makes life better. Dealing with defeat helps mold you as a fan. If you didn't experience the bitter taste of losing, then you wouldn't have any humility. You wouldn't have a heart. You'd be a New York Yankees fan. ~ Mark Tye Turner

Life will never meet all of our expectations. We must nonetheless accept all disappointments without becoming bitter and cynical. We must always remain mindful of the opportunity to extend kindness and work to improve our character. ~ Kilroy J. Oldster