“thy wit is a very bitter sweeting; it is a most sharp sauce.”
William Shakespeare book Romeo and Juliet
Source: Romeo and Juliet
“In the midst of the fountain of wit there arises something bitter, which stings in the very flowers.”
Book IV, lines 1133–1134 (reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations)
Variant translation: From the midst of the fountain of delights rises something bitter that chokes them all amongst the flowers.
Compare: "Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs / Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings", Lord Byron, Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto I, stanza 82
De Rerum Natura (On the Nature of Things)
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Lucretius45
Roman poet and philosopher -94–-55 BCRelated quotes
“O conscience, upright and stainless, how bitter a sting to thee is little fault!”
Dante Alighieri book Purgatorio
Canto III, lines 8–9 (tr. C. E. Norton).
The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–1321), Purgatorio
“Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain.”
John Locke (1632–1704) English philosopher and physician
Edie Sedgwick (1943–1971) Socialite, actress, model
On the 60's flower children
Edie : Girl On Fire (2006)
Context: It's sort of like a mockery in a way of reality because they think everything is smiles and sweetness and flowers when there is something bitter to taste. And to pretend there isn't is foolish. I mean the ones that wonder around and know, at the same time, and yet wear flowers, and they deserve to wear flowers. And they've earned their smile... you can tell by people's eyes.
Richard Mead (1673–1754) British physician
Source: A Mechanical Account of Poisons (1702), p. xxviii-xxix
“If every one of you agrees to practise this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.”
Anthony de Mello (1931–1987) Indian writer
Revelation
One Minute Wisdom (1989)
Context: Any time you are with anyone or think of anyone you must say to yourself: I am dying and this person too is dying, attempting the while to experience the truth of the words you are saying. If every one of you agrees to practise this, bitterness will die out, harmony will arise.
“Wit without humanity degenerates into bitterness. Learning without prudence into pedantry.”
James Burgh (1714–1775) British politician
The Dignity of Human Nature (1754)
Adelaide Anne Procter (1825–1864) English poet and songwriter
"Per Pacem ad Lucem".
A Chaplet of Verses (1862)