Quotes about bitter
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“I would mould a world of fire and dew
With no one bitter, grave, or over wise,
And nothing marred or old to do you wrong.”

W.B. Yeats The Land of Heart's Desire

The Land of Heart's Desire (1894)

World

“The forces of division have begun to raise their ugly head again … It reminds me: We've got a tragic history when it comes to race in this country. A lot of pent-up anger and mistrust and bitterness. This country wants to move beyond these kinds of things.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

"Obama asks country to come together right now" in The Boston Globe (16 March 2008) http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2008/03/16/obama_asks_country_to_come_together_right_now/ <br class="br">2008

History, Anger, Country

“Suddenly he saw them, the bottles of aguardiente, of anís, of jerez, of Highland Queen, the glasses, a babel of glasses—towering, like the smoke from the train that day—built to the sky, then falling, the glasses toppling and crashing, falling downhill from the Generalife Gardens, the bottles breaking, bottles of Oporto, tinto, blanco, bottles of Pernod, Oxygènée, absinthe, bottles smashing, bottles cast aside, falling with a thud on the ground in parks, under benches, beds, cinema seats, hidden in drawers at Consulates, bottles of Calvados dropped and broken, or bursting into smithereens, tossed into garbage heaps, flung into the sea, the Mediterranean, the Caspian, the Caribbean, bottles floating in the ocean, dead Scotchmen on the Atlantic highlands—and now he saw them, smelt them, all, from the very beginning—bottles, bottles, bottles, and glasses, glasses, glasses, of bitter, of Dubonnet, of Falstaff, Rye, Johnny Walker, Vieux Whiskey blanc Canadien, the apéritifs, the digestifs, the demis, the dobles, the noch ein Herr Obers, the et glas Araks, the tusen taks, the bottles, the bottles, the beautiful bottles of tequila, and the gourds, gourds, gourds, the millions of gourds of beautiful mescal...”

Malcolm Lowry book Under the Volcano

Source: Under the Volcano (1947), Ch. X (p. 292)

Beauty, Training, Sea, Dead

“The `Why?' cannot, and need not, be put into words. Those for whom a child's mind is a sealed book, and who see no divinity in a child's smile, would read such words in vain: while for any one that has ever loved one true child, no words are needed. For he will have known the awe that falls on one in the presence of a spirit fresh from GOD's hands, on whom no shadow of sin, and but the outermost fringe of the shadow of sorrow, has yet fallen: he will have felt the bitter contrast between the haunting selfishness that spoils his best deeds and the life that is but an overflowing love--for I think a child's first attitude to the world is a simple love for all living things: and he will have learned that the best work a man can do is when he works for love's sake only, with no thought of name, or gain, or earthly reward. No deed of ours, I suppose, on this side the grave, is really unselfish: yet if one can put forth all one's powers in a task where nothing of reward is hoped for but a little child's whispered thanks, and the airy touch of a little child's pure lips, one seems to come somewhere near to this.”

Lewis Carroll (1832–1898) English writer, logician, Anglican deacon and photographer

Alice's Adventures Under Ground (1886), Introduction, p. v

Love, Life, God, Books

“You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, a lot like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy towards people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

Statement at a San Francisco fundraiser (6 April 2008) http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2000404/posts <br class="br">2008

People, Religion, Way, Communication

“Apparently the rise of consciousness is linked to certain kinds of privation. It is the bitterness of self-consciousness that we knowers know best. Critical of the illusions that sustained mankind in earlier times, this self-consciousness of ours does little to sustain us now. The question is: which is disenchanted, the world itself or the consciousness we have of it?”

Saul Bellow (1915–2005) Canadian-born American writer

"A Matter of the Soul" (1975), pp. 75-76
It All Adds Up (1994)

World, Question, Time

“One must learn to forgive and not to hold a hostile, bitter attitude of mind, which offends those about us and prevents us from enjoying ourselves; one must recognize human shortcomings and adjust himself to them rather than to be constantly finding fault with them.”

Napoleon I of France (1769–1821) French general, First Consul and later Emperor of the French

Napoleon : In His Own Words (1916)

Hostility, Forgiveness, Learning

“The climbing soul, leaving all that she has grasped already as too narrow for her needs, will thus grasp the idea of that magnificence which is exalted far above the heavens. But how can any one reach to this, whose ambitions creep below? … He therefore who keeps away from all bitterness and all the noisome effluvia of the flesh, and raises himself on the aforesaid wings above all low earthly ambitions, or, more than that, above the whole universe itself, will be the man to find that which is alone worth loving, and to become himself as beautiful as the Beauty which he has touched and entered.”

Gregory of Nyssa (335–395) bishop of Nyssa

On Virginity, Chapter 11

Love, Beauty, Soul, Idea

“And this brings me to the final area where our nations have to come together -- in our steadfast support for those who reach for their freedom. And, yes, that includes the people of Ukraine. And few understand this better than the Baltic peoples. You know from bitter experience that we can never take our security and liberties for granted. We want Ukrainians to be independent and strong and able to make their own choices free from fear and intimidation, because the more countries are free and strong, and free from intimidation, the more secure our own liberties are.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2014, Remarks to the People of Estonia (September 2014)

People, Fear, Understanding, Support

“O bitter is it to abide
In weariness alway:
At dawn to sigh for eventide,
At eventide for day.
Thy noon hath fled: thy sun hath shone:
The brightness of thy day is gone:
What need to lag and linger on
Till life be cold and gray?”

Lewis Carroll Three Sunsets and Other Poems

The Valley of the Shadow of Death (1868)
Three Sunsets and Other Poems (1898)

Life, Sun

“For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.
And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.”

Barack Obama (1961) 44th President of the United States of America

2008, A More Perfect Union (March 2008)

Life, Women, Men, People

“To our most bitter opponents we say: "We shall match your capacity to inflict suffering by our capacity to endure suffering. We shall meet your physical force with soul force. Do to us what you will, and we shall continue to love you. We cannot in all good conscience obey your unjust laws because noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. Throw us in jail and we shall still love you. Bomb our homes and threaten our children, and we shall still love you. Send your hooded perpetrators of violence into our community at the midnight hour and beat us and leave us half dead, and we shall still love you. But be ye assured that we will wear you down by our capacity to suffer. One day we shall win freedom but not only for ourselves. We shall so appeal to your heart and conscience that we shall win you in the process and our victory will be a double victory."”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1950s, Loving Your Enemies (Christmas 1957)

Love, Children, Law, Home

“I was standing in the crowd by the side of Mrs. Thomas J. Dorsey, when Mr. Lincoln touched Mr. Johnson, and pointed me out to him. The first expression which came to his face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance; but it was too late; it was useless to close the door when all within had been seen. His first glance was the frown of the man, the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue. I turned to Mrs. Dorsey and said, 'Whatever Andrew Johnson may be, he certainly is no friend of our race'.”

Frederick Douglass (1818–1895) American social reformer, orator, writer and statesman

Source: 1880s, Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1881), p. 355.
Context: On this inauguration day, while waiting for the opening of the ceremonies, I made a discovery in regard to the vice president — Andrew Johnson. There are moments in the lives of most men, when the doors of their souls are open, and unconsciously to themselves, their true characters may be read by the observant eye. It was at such an instant I caught a glimpse of the real nature of this man, which all subsequent developments proved true. I was standing in the crowd by the side of Mrs. Thomas J. Dorsey, when Mr. Lincoln touched Mr. Johnson, and pointed me out to him. The first expression which came to his face, and which I think was the true index of his heart, was one of bitter contempt and aversion. Seeing that I observed him, he tried to assume a more friendly appearance; but it was too late; it was useless to close the door when all within had been seen. His first glance was the frown of the man, the second was the bland and sickly smile of the demagogue. I turned to Mrs. Dorsey and said, 'Whatever Andrew Johnson may be, he certainly is no friend of our race'.

Smile, Thinking, Appearance, Heart

“It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.”

Martha Gellhorn (1908–1998) journalist from the United States

Letter as quoted in "Gellhorn: A Twentieth Century Life" (2003) written by Caroline Moorehead.
Context: War happens to people, one by one. That is really all I have to say and it seems to me I have been saying it forever. Unless they are immediate victims, the majority of mankind behaves as if war was an act of God which could not be prevented; or they behave as if war elsewhere was none of their business. It would be a bitter cosmic joke if we destroy ourselves due to atrophy of the imagination.

Imagination

“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 (1884–1962) American politician, diplomat, and activist, and First Lady of the United States

Source: You Learn by Living (1960), p. 152
Context: "Anxiety," Kierkegaard said, "is the dizziness of freedom." 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. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry his own weight, this is a frightening prospect.
We must all face and unpalatable fact that we have, too often, a tendency to skim over; we proceed on the assumption that all men want freedom. This is not as true as we would like it to be. Many men and women who are far happier when they have relinquish their freedom, when someone else guides them, makes their decisions for them, takes the responsibility for them and their actions. They don't want to make up their minds. They don't want to stand on their own feet.

Men, People, Freedom, Fight

“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.”

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.

Smile, Way, Flowers, Thinking

“The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.
These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience.”

Haile Selassie (1892–1975) Emperor of Ethiopia

Address to the United Nations (1963)
Context: The Charter of the United Nations expresses the noblest aspirations of man: abjugation of force in the settlement of disputes between states; the assurance of human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language or religion; the safeguarding of international peace and security.
But these, too, as were the phrases of the Covenant, are only words; their value depends wholly on our will to observe and honour them and give them content and meaning. The preservation of peace and the guaranteeing of man's basic freedoms and rights require courage and eternal vigilance: courage to speak and act — and if necessary, to suffer and die — for truth and justice; eternal vigilance, that the least transgression of international morality shall not go undetected and unremedied.
These lessons must be learned anew by each succeeding generation, and that generation is fortunate indeed which learns from other than its own bitter experience. This Organization and each of its members bear a crushing and awesome responsibility: to absorb the wisdom of history and to apply it to the problems of the present, in order that future generations may be born, and live, and die, in peace.

Truth, Peace, Justice, Courage

“Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism.”

Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) General secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

"Anti-Semitism: Reply to an inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States" (12 January 1931)
Stalin's speeches, writings and authorised interviews
Context: National and racial chauvinism is a vestige of the misanthropic customs characteristic of the period of cannibalism. Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism. Anti-semitism is of advantage to the exploiters as a lightning conductor that deflects the blows aimed by the working people at capitalism. Anti-Semitism is dangerous for the toilers, for it is a false track which diverts them from the proper road and leads them into the jungle. Hence, Communists, as consistent internationalists, cannot but be irreconcilable and bitter enemies of anti-Semitism. In the U. S. S. R., anti-Semitism is strictly prosecuted as a phenomenon hostile to the Soviet system. According to the laws of the U. S. S. R. active anti-Semites are punished with death.

“Any discrimination against aliens is a wrong, for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause him to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years when he should be preparing himself for American citizenship. If an immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he should not be allowed to come here. If he is fit, he should be given all the rights to earn his own livelihood, and to better himself, that any man can have.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: We should meet this situation by on the one hand seeing that these immigrants get all their rights as American citizens, and on the other hand insisting that they live up to their duties as American citizens. Any discrimination against aliens is a wrong, for it tends to put the immigrant at a disadvantage and to cause him to feel bitterness and resentment during the very years when he should be preparing himself for American citizenship. If an immigrant is not fit to become a citizen, he should not be allowed to come here. If he is fit, he should be given all the rights to earn his own livelihood, and to better himself, that any man can have. Take such a matter as the illiteracy test; I entirely agree with those who feel that many very excellent possible citizens would be barred improperly by an illiteracy test. But why do you not admit aliens under a bond to learn to read and write within a certain time? It would then be a duty to see that they were given ample opportunity to learn to read and write and that they were deported if they failed to take advantage of the opportunity.

Feeling

“Holy shadows of the dead, I’m not to blame for your cruel and bitter fate, but the accursed rivalry which brought sister nations and brother people, to fight one another. I do not feel happy for this victory of mine. On the contrary, I would be glad, brothers, if I had all of you standing here next to me, since we are united by the same language, the same blood and the same visions.”

Alexander the Great (-356–-323 BC) King of Macedon

Addressing the dead Hellenes (the Athenean and Thebean Greeks) of the Battle of Chaeronea, as quoted in Historiae Alexandri Magni by Quintus Curtius Rufus

Fate, People, Feeling, Sister

“What makes bitter things sweet? Hunger.”

Alcuin (735–804) English scholar and abbot

in R Lacey and D Danziger, The Year 1000, Little, Brown and Co,GB, 1999, p. 57

Hunger

“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.

“Wherever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure”

Bertrand Russell (1872–1970) logician, one of the first analytic philosophers and political activist

The Collected Papers of Bertrand Russell: Contemplation and Action, 1902-1914, ed. Richard A. Rempel, Andrew Brink and Margaret Moran (Routledge, 1993, : Textual Notes, p. 555; also in Laurence J. Peter Quotations for our time (1978), p. 188
Attributed from posthumous publications
Context: Wherever one finds oneself inclined to bitterness, it is a sign of emotional failure: a larger heart, and a greater self-restraint, would put a calm autumnal sadness in the place of the instinctive outcry of pain.

Failure

“The American people should itself do these things for the immigrants. If we leave the immigrant to be helped by representatives of foreign governments, by foreign societies, by a press and institutions conducted in a foreign language and in the interest of foreign governments, and if we permit the immigrants to exist as alien groups, each group sundered from the rest of the citizens of the country, we shall store up for ourselves bitter trouble in the future.”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)

Help, Future, People, Country

“Many have cried a thousand nights of bitter anguish without tears. And the tormented betrayal soars at twilight.”

Gandolfo – (RJ Intindola)

1996

Betrayal, Night, Tear

“This new patriarch Fox said one day to a justice of peace, before a large assembly of people. "Friend, take care what thou dost; God will soon punish thee for persecuting his saints." This magistrate, being one who besotted himself every day with bad beer and brandy, died of apoplexy two days after; just as he had signed a mittimus for imprisoning some Quakers. The sudden death of this justice was not ascribed to his intemperance; but was universally looked upon as the effect of the holy man's predictions; so that this accident made more Quakers than a thousand sermons and as many shaking fits would have done. Cromwell, finding them increase daily, was willing to bring them over to his party, and for that purpose tried bribery; however, he found them incorruptible, which made him one day declare that this was the only religion he had ever met with that could resist the charms of gold.
The Quakers suffered several persecutions under Charles II; not upon a religious account, but for refusing to pay the tithes, for "theeing" and "thouing" the magistrates, and for refusing to take the oaths enacted by the laws.
At length Robert Barclay, a native of Scotland, presented to the king, in 1675, his "Apology for the Quakers"; a work as well drawn up as the subject could possibly admit. The dedication to Charles II, instead of being filled with mean, flattering encomiums, abounds with bold truths and the wisest counsels. "Thou hast tasted," says he to the king, at the close of his "Epistle Dedicatory," "of prosperity and adversity: thou hast been driven out of the country over which thou now reignest, and from the throne on which thou sittest: thou hast groaned beneath the yoke of oppression; therefore hast thou reason to know how hateful the oppressor is both to God and man. If, after all these warnings and advertisements, thou dost not turn unto the Lord, with all thy heart; but forget Him who remembered thee in thy distress, and give thyself up to follow lust and vanity, surely great will be thy guilt, and bitter thy condemnation. Instead of listening to the flatterers about thee, hearken only to the voice that is within thee, which never flatters. I am thy faithful friend and servant, Robert Barclay."”

Voltaire (1694–1778) French writer, historian, and philosopher

The most surprising circumstance is that this letter, though written by an obscure person, was so happy in its effect as to put a stop to the persecution.
The History of the Quakers (1762)

God, Peace, Religion, Beer

“The bourgeois is about to leave the historical stage. In its place will come the class of productive workers, the working class, that has been up until today oppressed. It is beginning to fulfill its political mission. It is involved in a hard and bitter struggle for political power as it seeks to become part of the national organism. The battle began in the economic realm; it will finish in the political.”

Joseph Goebbels (1897–1945) Nazi politician and Propaganda Minister

1930s, Die verfluchten Hakenkreuzler. Etwas zum Nachdenken (1932)

Parting

“Whether at Naishapur or Babylon,
Whether the Cup with sweet or bitter run,
The Wine of Life keeps oozing drop by drop,
The Leaves of Life keep falling one by one.”

Omar Khayyám (1048–1131) Persian poet, philosopher, mathematician, and astronomer

Source: The Rubaiyat (1120)

Life, Wine

“If you woke, then wake up
With Judas, kiss and make up
Even with the bitter cup
Forgave my brothers and drank up Everything old shall now become new
The leaves’ll be green, bearing the fruit
Love God and our neighbor, as written in Luke
The army of God, and we are the truth.”

Kanye West (1977) American rapper, singer and songwriter

Selah
Lyrics, Jesus Is King (2019)

God, Truth, Kiss, Love

“I was a veritable Johnny Appleseed of grand expectations, and all I reaped for my trouble was a harvest of bitter fruit.”

Elizabeth Gilbert book Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

Source: Committed: A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage

“What I'm certain I don't want is to find myself someday in a new century, an old bitter woman looking back, wishing that right now I'd had more nerve.”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

“Sourness and bitterness come from the interfering and unappreciative mind. Life itself, when understood and utilized for what it is, is sweet. That is the message of The Vinegar Tasters.”

Benjamin Hoff book The Tao of Pooh

Source: The Tao of Pooh

Life

“She wasn't bitter. She was sad, though. But it was a hopeful kind of sad. The kind of sad that just takes time.”

Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Sadness, Hope, Time

“Of course he loves me. I’m his sister.”
“Blood isn’t love,” said Magnus, and his voice was bitter.”

Cassandra Clare The City of Lost Souls

Source: City of Lost Souls

Love, Sister

“Bitter love, a violet with it's crown of thorns in a thicet of spiky passions, spear of sorrow, corolla of rage: how did you come to conquer my soul? What brought you?”

Pablo Neruda (1904–1973) Chilean poet

Source: 100 Love Sonnets

Love, Soul, Rage, Passion

“Unfortunately, we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing.”

Cassandra Clare book City of Bones

Hodge and Clary, pg. 75
Source: The Mortal Instruments, City of Bones (2007)
Context: "Is there anything I could get for you?" he asked. "Something to drink? Some tea?"
"I don't want tea," said Clary, with a muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them."
"Unfortunately," said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing."

Revenge, Tea

“Only someone who had experienced such bitter despair would be able to recognize it in another.”

Lisa Kleypas (1964) American writer

Source: Then Came You

Despair

“I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar”

James St. James (1966) American writer

Source: Party Monster: A Fabulous But True Tale of Murder in Clubland

“Bitterness is repaid more often than kindness.”

Brandon Sanderson book The Way of Kings

Source: The Way of Kings

“I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out.”

Bill Hicks (1961–1994) American comedian

“You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy who goes home alone. Cause without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet.”

Cameron Crowe (1957) Academy Award-winning American writer and film director

Source: Vanilla Sky

Pain, Guy, Home, Baby

“It was a bitter moment for us. We weren't two mature parents. We were just two kids playing grown-up. We still needed Mommy and Daddy's permission, blessings, and money to survive.”

Erma Bombeck (1927–1996) When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent le…

Money, Parent

“Some of my most neurotically fierce bitterness is the result of realizing how untrue people have become.”

Jack Kerouac (1922–1969) American writer

Source: Jack Kerouac and Allen Ginsberg: The Letters

People

“Before him he saw two roads, both equally straight; but he did see two; and that terrified him--he who had never in his life known anything but one straight line. And, bitter anguish, these two roads were contradictory.”

Victor Hugo book Les Misérables

Source: Les Misérables

Life

“When young lips have drunk deep of the bitter waters of hate, suspicion and despair, all the love in the world will not wholly take away that knowledge. Though it may turn darkened eyes for a while to the light, and teach faith where no faith was.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Love, Hate, World, Faith

“Watching you walk out of my life does not make me bitter or cynical about love. But rather makes me realize that if I wanted so much to be with the wrong person, how beautiful it will be when the right person comes along.”

Nicholas Sparks book Dear John

Source: Dear John

Love, Life, Beauty, Personality

“Grief and disappointment are like hate: they make men ugly with self-pity and bitterness. And how selfish they make us too.”

Graham Greene (1904–1991) English writer, playwright and literary critic

Men, Hate, Disappointment, Selfishness

“The world was reduced to the surface of her skin and her inner self was safe from all bitterness.”

Gabriel García Márquez book One Hundred Years of Solitude

Source: One Hundred Years of Solitude (1967), p. 279, referring to Amaranta

World

“It was inevitable: the scent of bitter almonds always reminded him of the fate of unrequited love.”

Gabriel García Márquez (1927–2014) Colombian writer

Love, Fate

“Hatred is blind; rage carries you away; and he who pours out vengeance runs the risk of tasting a bitter draught.”

Alexandre Dumas book The Count of Monte Cristo

Source: The Count of Monte Cristo

Rage

“Happiness. Simple as a glass of chocolate or tortuous as the heart. Bitter. Sweet. Alive.”

Joanne Harris book Chocolat

Source: Chocolat

Happy, Heart, Happiness

“Somehow the bright beauty had gone from April afternoon and from her heart as well and the sad sweetness of remembering was as bitter as gall.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Sadness, Beauty, Heart

“Bitterness: anger that forgot where it came from.”

Alain de Botton (1969) Swiss writer

Anger

“These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.”

George Eliot book The Mill on the Floss

Source: The Mill on the Floss (1860)

Hope, Summer, Childhood, Flying

“See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it”

Jodi Picoult My Sister's Keeper

Source: My Sister's Keeper

World, Memory

“Even in winter, the cold isn't always bitter, and not every day is cruel.”

Jim Butcher book Changes

Source: Changes

Winter

“If you compare yourself to others, you may become vain and bitter; for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself.”

Max Ehrmann (1872–1945) American writer, poet, and attorney

Source: Desiderata: A Poem for a Way of Life

Personality

“Intelligence is so damn rare and the people who have it often have such a bad time with it that they get bitter or propagandistic and then it's not much use.”

Ernest Hemingway (1899–1961) American author and journalist

People, Intelligence, Time

“It isn’t easy being a brilliant inventor, always alone. Always misunderstood. Easy to turn bitter, make horrible mistakes. People are more difficult to work with than machines. And when you break a person, he can’t be fixed.

-Hephaestus”

Rick Riordan book The Battle of the Labyrinth

Source: The Battle of the Labyrinth

People, Personality

“A Warrior of Light values a child's eyes because they are able to look at the world without bitterness. When he wants to find out if the person beside him is worthy of his trust, he tries to see him as a child would”

Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist

Source: Warrior of the Light

World, Light, Personality

“To expect too much is to have a sentimental view of life and this is a softness that ends in bitterness.”

Flannery O’Connor (1925–1964) American novelist, short story writer

Life

“The world is wider in all directions, more dangerous and bitter, more extravagant and bright. We are making hay when we should be making whoopee; we are raising tomatoes when we should be raising Cain and Lazarus.”

Annie Dillard book Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

Source: Pilgrim at Tinker Creek

World

“Hurt leads to bitterness, bitterness to anger. Travel too far that road and the way is lost.”

Terry Brooks book The Elfstones of Shannara

Source: The Elfstones of Shannara

Hurtful, Way, Travel, Hurt

“The bitterness of joy lies in the knowledge that it cannot last. Nor should joy last beyond a certain season, for, after that season, even joy would become merely habit.”

Tanith Lee book Delusion's Master

Source: Delusion's Master

Knowledge, Joy, Season

“The sad ones are those who waste their energy in trying to hold it back, for they can only feel bitterness in loss and no joy in gain.”

John Steinbeck book Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Source: Travels with Charley: In Search of America

Sadness, Feeling, Loss, Joy

“To die is poignantly bitter, but the idea of having to die without having lived is unbearable.”

Erich Fromm (1900–1980) German social psychologist and psychoanalyst

Source: Man for Himself (1947), Ch. 4

Idea

“Oh, you're in my blood like holy wine,
You taste so bitter and so sweet
Oh I could drink a case of you, darling
And I would still be on my feet
I would still be on my feet.”

Joni Mitchell (1943) Canadian musician

"A Case of You" from Blue
Songs
Source: Joni Mitchell: The Complete Poems and Lyrics

Drink, Wine

“Pippa's laugh is bitter, tinged with tears. 'Ha! Why do girls think being beautiful will solve every problem? Being beautiful just creates problems. It's a misery. I wish I were someone else.”

Libba Bray A Great and Terrible Beauty

Source: A Great and Terrible Beauty

Beauty, Girl, Problem, Thinking

“bitter is a bad way to live!”

Margaret Peterson Haddix Among the Impostors

Source: Among the Impostors

Way

“No rest without love,
no sleep without dreams of love-
be mad or chill obsessed with angels or machines,
the final wish is love
-cannot be bitter, cannot deny,
cannot withhold if denied: the weight is too heavy”

Allen Ginsberg book Howl and Other Poems

Source: Howl and Other Poems

Love, Dreams, Angels, Sleep

“Men Wanted: For hazardous journey. Small wages, bitter cold, long months of complete darkness, constant danger, safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in case of success.”

Ernest Shackleton (1874–1922) Anglo-Irish polar explorer

The first published appearance of this "ad" is on the first page of a 1949 book by Julian Lewis Watkins, The 100 Greatest Advertisements: Who Wrote Them and What They Did. (Moore Publishing Company), except with the Americanized word "honor", rather than "honour".

Men, Success

“If he had to bring all the bitterness and hatred of the world into his heart, he was not going to be in love with her again.”

F. Scott Fitzgerald book Tender Is the Night

Source: Tender Is the Night

Love, World, Heart

“Bitterness is the coward's revenge on the world for having been hurt.”

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) American folklorist, novelist, short story writer

World, Revenge, Hurt

“How surely are the dead beyond death. Death is what the living carry with them. A state of dread, like some uncanny foretaste of a bitter memory. But the dead do not remember and nothingness is not a curse. Far from it.”

Cormac McCarthy book Suttree

page 153
Source: Suttree (1979)

Death, Memory, Dead

“He wasn't in a safe little story where wrongs were automatically righted; he was still in the real world, where bad bitter things happened for no reason, and people paid for things that weren't their fault.”

Lev Grossman The Magicians

Source: The Magicians

People, World

“How bitter were
the Prozac pills
of the last
few hundred mornings”

Leonard Cohen book Book of Longing

Source: Book of Longing

“Anger is not bitterness. Bitterness can go on eating at a man's heart and mind forever. Anger spends itself in its own time.”

Madeleine L'Engle A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Source: A Swiftly Tilting Planet

Time, Heart, Anger

“Weary or bitter of bewildered as we may be, God is faithful. He lets us wander so we will know what it means to come home.”

Marilynne Robinson Home

Source: Home

God, Faith, Home

“He made her play and she had almost forgotten how. Life had been so serious and so bitter. He knew how to play and swept her along with him.”

Margaret Mitchell book Vom Winde verweht (1937 German edition)

Source: Gone with the Wind

Life

“For a well-made cup of coffee is the proper beginning to an idle day. Its aroma is beguiling, its taste is sweet; yet it leaves behind only bitterness and regret. In that, it resembles, surely, the pleasures of love.”

Anthony Capella (1962) British writer

Source: The Various Flavours Of Coffee

Love, Pleasure, Coffee

“People can be more forgiving than you can imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what's bitter and move on.”

Bill Cosby (1937) American actor, comedian, author, producer, musician, activist

Moving On, People, Imagination, Forgiveness

“Living in your dreams meant bitter disappointment when you woke up.”

Ilona Andrews American husband-and-wife novelist duo

Source: On the Edge

Dreams, Disappointment

“But I like it
Because it is bitter,
And because it is my heart.”

Stephen Crane (1871–1900) American novelist, short story writer, poet, and journalist

Heart

“The problem is, hope is the thing that can’t be reined in by rules or pinned down by bitter experience. It’s a blessing and curse.”

Cinda Williams Chima (1952) Novelist

Source: Flamecaster

Hope, Problem

“the worst thing," he told me,
"is bitterness, people end up so
bitter.”

Charles Bukowski (1920–1994) American writer

Source: You Get So Alone at Times That it Just Makes Sense

People

“I freeze and burn, love is bitter and sweet, my sighs are tempests and my tears are floods, I am in ecstasy and agony, I am possessed by memories of her and I am in exile from myself.”

Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) Italian scholar and poet

Source: Canzoniere: Selected Poems

Love, Tear, Memory

“One sometimes weeps over one's illusions with as much bitterness as over a death.”

Guy De Maupassant book Une vie

Source: Une vie

Death

“It wasn't good, he wasn't good, he did not have good intentions. I stood there, and he stood there. He breathed out the bitter air that makes women doubt everything, and I breathed it in, as I had always done.”

Miranda July (1974) American performance artist, musician and writer

Source: No One Belongs Here More Than You

Women

“Luck, you see, brings bitter friends.”

John Steinbeck book The Pearl

Source: The Pearl (1947), Ch. III

“Everything Dies. That is the law of life-the bitter unchangeable law”

David Clement-Davies book Fell

Source: Fell

Life, Law

“I'm ruined beyond repair, is what I fear… And if so, in time we'd both be wretched and bitter."
"I know people can be mended. Not all, and some more immediately than others. But some can be. I don't see why not you."
"Why not me?”

Charles Frazier book Cold Mountain

Source: Cold Mountain

People, Fear, Time

“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 (1890–1979) novelist from Dominica

Time, Sincerity

“But, true, I’ve wept too much! Dawns break hearts./ Every moon is brutal, every sun bitter.”

Arthur Rimbaud (1854–1891) French Decadent and Symbolist poet

Variant: But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.

Sun, Heart

“He was a man without a past, whose future was the imminent grave and whose present was a bitter fever of living.”

Jack London Martin Eden

Source: Martin Eden

Past, Future

“I'm not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life.”

Johnny Cash (1932–2003) American singer-songwriter

CNN interview (2002)
Context: I'm not bitter. Why should I be bitter? I'm thrilled to death with life. Life is — the way God has given it to me was just a platter — a golden platter of life laid out there for me. It's been beautiful.

Life, Death

“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

Peaceful, Drink, Freedom