“I grow old on my bitterness.”

— Anne Sexton, book Live or Die

"Two Sons"
Live or Die (1966)

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Anne Sexton120

poet from the United States 1928–1974

Mignon McLaughlin (1913–1983) American journalist

The Complete Neurotic's Notebook (1981), Unclassified

“The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness
That empty the heart.”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

In The Seven Woods http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1518/ In The Seven Woods (1904) Context: I have heard the pigeons of the Seven Woods Make their faint thunder, and the garden bees Hum in the lime-tree flowers; and put away The unavailing outcries and the old bitterness That empty the heart. I have forgot awhile Tara uprooted, and new commonness Upon the throne and crying about the streets And hanging its paper flowers from post to post, Because it is alone of all things happy. I am contented, for I know that Quiet Wanders laughing and eating her wild heart Among pigeons and bees, while that Great Archer, Who but awaits His house to shoot, still hands A cloudy quiver over Pairc-na-lee.

“I shall laugh my bitter laugh.”

Nikolai Gogol (1809–1852) Russian writer

Epitaph on Gogol's tombstone

“The Grand Inquisitor is old and tired, for the knowledge he possesses is bitter.”

Albert Camus book The Rebel

Part 2: Metaphysical Rebellion
The Rebel (1951)
Context: Alyosha can, in fact, treat Ivan with compassion as a "real simpleton." The latter only made aa attempt at self-control and failed. Others will appear, with more serious intentions, who, on the basis of the same despairing nihilism, will insist on ruling the world. These are the Grand Inquisitors who imprison Christ and come to tell Him that His method is not correct, that universal happiness cannot be achieved by the immediate freedom of choosing between good and evil, but by the domination and unification of the world. The first step is to conquer and rule. The kingdom of heaven will, in fact, appear on earth, but it will be ruled over by men — a mere handful to begin with, who will be the Cassars, because they were the first to understand — and later, with time, by all men. The unity of all creation will be achieved by every possible means, since everything is permitted. The Grand Inquisitor is old and tired, for the knowledge he possesses is bitter. He knows that men are lazy rather than cowardly and that they prefer peace and death to the liberty of discerning between good and evil. He has pity, a cold pity, for the silent prisoner whom history endlessly deceives. He urges him to speak, to recognize his misdeeds, and, in one sense, to approve the actions of the Inquisitors and of the Caesars. But the prisoner does not speak.