33 Bitterness Quotes To Reflect On

Bitterness is an emotion that everyone encounters at some point in life. It often stems from feelings of injustice, loss, or disappointment. While it can be a challenging emotion to process, reflecting on the words of others who have also grappled with bitterness can offer insight and solace. In this post, we've curated a collection of the top 33 bitterness quotes to help you explore, understand, and ultimately move past these difficult feelings. Whether you're facing a personal setback, dealing with a strained relationship, or simply seeking wisdom, these quotes provide food for thought and a pathway toward healing.

1. “The moon in all her immaculate purity hung in the sky, laughing at this world of dust. She congratulated me for my carefully considered maneuvers and invited me to share in her eternal solitude.” - Shan Sa

2. “Part of the problem with the word 'disabilities' is that it immediately suggests an inability to see or hear or walk or do other things that many of us take for granted. But what of people who can't feel? Or talk about their feelings? Or manage their feelings in constructive ways? What of people who aren't able to form close and strong relationships? And people who cannot find fulfillment in their lives, or those who have lost hope, who live in disappointment and bitterness and find in life no joy, no love? These, it seems to me, are the real disabilities.” - Fred Rogers

3. “I want to say somewhere: I've tried to be forgiving. And yet. There were times in my life, whole years, when anger got the better of me. Ugliness turned me inside out. There was a certain satisfaction in bitterness. I courted it. It was standing outside, and I invited it in.” - Nicole Krauss

4. “The rain fluctuates between drizzle and torrential. It messes with your mind. It makes you think things will always be like this, never getting better, always letting you down right when you though the worst was over.” - Susane Colasanti

5. “Intense, unexpected suffering passes more quickly than suffering that is apparently bearable; the latter goes on for years and, without our noticing, eats away at our souls, until, one day, we are no longer able to free ourselves from the bitterness and it stays with us for the rest of our lives.” - Paulo Coelho

6. “Better to forget, better to let go of the bitterness. I say bitterness is only good in medicine, or if you fry bitter gourd with egg, then it's dlicious. I told Lan-Lan many times, we have only one life, it's important to kua kwee, to look spaciously. Not keep the eyes so narrowed down to the small dispairs.Those people who say forgive and forget, I say they not right. Not so simple. I say, find right medicine. Bitterness must be just right for problem. Then swallow it, think of good things can do when no longer sick.” - Lydia Kwa

7. “ The Blue Jay's Lullaby— Spiders and sowbugs and beetles and crickets, Slugs from the roses and ticks from the thickets,  Grasshoppers, snails, and a quail's egg or two—   All to be regurgitated for you.Lullaby, lullaby, swindles and schemes, Flying's not near as much fun as it seems.” - Peter S. Beagle

8. “Surely if we knew what bitterness fate held in store, we would shrink back in fear and let the cup of life pass us by untasted.” - Jacqueline Carey

9. “Ah, how many Marahs have been sweetened by a simple, satisfying glimpse of the Tree and the Love which underwent its worst confict there. Yes, the Cross is the tree that sweetens the waters. 'Love never faileth.” - Jim Elliot

10. “Everythin' seems ter happen ter you, doesn' it?” - J.K. Rowling

11. “But you can't start. Only a baby can start. You and me - why, we're all that's been. The anger of a moment, the thousand pictures, that's us. This land, this red land, is us; and the flood years and the dust years and the drought years are us. We can't start again. The bitterness we sold to the junk man - he got it all right, but we have it still. And when the owner men told us to go, that's us; and when the tractor hit the house, that's us until we're dead. To California or any place - every one a drum major leading a parade of hurts, marching with our bitterness. And some day - the armies of bitterness will all be going the same way. And they'll all walk together, and there'll be a dead terror from it.” - John Steinbeck

12. “I no longer believe in love," she said bitterly. "When people claim to have lost their heart, it's usually only their wits that have vanished.” - Peter Prange

13. “A bitter man needs to place his troubles on the front of his tongue so that they taste sweeter.” - Jay Wickre

14. “They had painted a lady leaning her arms on the sill of the window. This lady was waiting for a husband. Her flesh was slack and she was some forty-five years old. Perhaps she had been waiting since she was fifteen. A rose and mauve lady that had not yet gathered her flesh and her beauty into dark clothes, and still waited, like a rose stripped of its petals, with her faded colors and her artificial smile, bitter as a grimace.” - Rafael Sánchez Ferlosio

15. “There's nothing deeper than love. In fairy tales, the princesses kiss the frogs, and the frogs become princes. In real life,the princesses kiss princes, and the princes turn into frogs.” - Paulo Coelho

16. “It always struck me in years after how bizarre it was, how two people could look at one another with such tenderness and complete love, and how quickly that could dissolve into nothing but bitterness.” - Hannah Harrington

17. “Bitter words normally evaporate with the moisture of breath, after a quarrel. In order to become permanent, they require transcribers, reporters, complicit black hearts.” - Barbara Kingsolver

18. “When it comes to world news, attitude is what marks the distinction between justice and vengeance. Justice is pure, but vengeance brings more ruin.” - Criss Jami

19. “No, I am not bitter, I am not hateful, and I am not unforgiving. I just don't like you.” - C. JoyBell C.

20. “Certain people, in their eagerness to construct a world no external threat can penetrate build exaggeratedly high defense againts the outside world, againts new people, new places, different experiences and leave their own world stripped bare. It is there that bitterness begins irrevocable work.” - Paulo Coelho

21. “Parables, yes. We here are to lead life with woe. Tasting bitter.” - Lynne Sharon Schwartz

22. “Up from behind a sand dune close beside her rose the form of her enemy Bitterness. He did not come any nearer, having learned a little more prudence, and was not going to make her call for the Shepherd if he could avoid it, but simply stood and looked at her and laughed and laughed again, the bitterest sound that Much-Afraid had heard in all her life.” - Hannah Hurnard

23. “I believe you did not have a happy life.I believe you were cheated.I believe your best friends were loneliness and misery.I believe your busiest enemies were anger and depression.I believe joy was a game you could never play without stumbling.I believe comfort, though you craved it, was forever a stranger.I believe music had to be melancholy or not at all.I believe no trinket, no precious metal, shone so bright as your bitterness.I believe you lay down at last in your coffin none the wiser and unassuaged.Oh, cold and dreamless under the wild, amoral, reckless, peaceful flowers of the hillsides.” - Mary Oliver White Heron Rises Over Blackwater

24. “What is love for, if not to intensify our affections—both in life and death? But, O, do not be bitter. It is tragically self-destructiveto be bitter.” - John Piper

25. “A mindset of gratitude lifts the veil of bitterness and allows you to see beauty and possibility.” - Steve Maraboli

26. “When anything in life is an absolute requirement for your happiness and self-worth, it is essentially an ‘idol,’ something you are actually worshiping. When such a thing is threatened, your anger is absolute. Your anger is actually the way the idol keeps you in its service, in its chains. Therefore if you find that, despite all the efforts to forgive, your anger and bitterness cannot subside, you may need to look deeper and ask, ‘What am I defending? What is so important that I cannot live without?’ It may be that, until some inordinate desire is identified and confronted, you will not be able to master your anger.” - Timothy Keller

27. “Our existence comes with Death. And it comes with suffering, death alone is not enough and pleasure have consequences. wicked and fucked. love comes with hurting. And having means losing.” - Ira N. Barin

28. “...there's something magical about a mask, but I have never worn one - I want you to see my pain and know how your love affects me...” - John Geddes

29. “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

30. “We shall, as we ripen in grace, have greater sweetness towards our fellow Christians. Bitter-spirited Christians may know a great deal, but they are immature. Those who are quick to censure may be very acute in judgment, but they are as yet very immature in heart. He who grows in grace remembers that he is but dust, and he therefore does not expect his fellow Christians to be anything more; he overlooks ten thousand of their faults, because he knows his God overlooks twenty thousand in his own case. He does not expect perfection in the creature, and, therefore, he is not disappointed when he does not find it. ... I know we who are young beginners in grace think ourselves qualified to reform the whole Christian church. We drag her before us, and condemn her straightway; but when our virtues become more mature, I trust we shall not be more tolerant of evil, but we shall be more tolerant of infirmity, more hopeful for the people of God, and certainly less arrogant in our criticisms.” - Charles H. Spurgeon

31. “For a cup brimful of sweet water cannot spill even one drop of bitter water, however suddenly jolted.” - Amy Carmichael

32. “Nothing makes a smart man stupid like a thirst for vengeance.” - Elementary

33. “Why, that is why the gods made whores for imps like me.” - George R.R. Martin