38 Resentment Quotes To Reflect

Feeling weighed down by unresolved anger or bitterness is something many can relate to. Resentment, often described as the silent thief of joy, can tarnish our days and strain our relationships. Sometimes, all it takes is a moment of reflection to start letting go of these negative emotions. We've gathered a collection of the top 38 resentment quotes to inspire contemplation and healing. Each quote is a small step toward embracing forgiveness and inner peace, reminding us that letting go can be the most liberating choice we make.

1. “I think resentment is when you take the poison and wait for the other person to die” - M.T.

2. “As smoking is to the lungs, so is resentment to the soul; even one puff is bad for you.” - Elizabeth Gilbert

3. “Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. ” - Carrie Fisher

4. “Imagine the people who believe such things and who are not ashamed to ignore, totally, all the patient findings of thinking minds through all the centuries since the Bible was written. And it is these ignorant people, the most uneducated, the most unimaginative, the most unthinking among us, who would make themselves the guides and leaders of us all; who would force their feeble and childish beliefs on us; who would invade our schools and libraries and homes. I personally resent it bitterly.” - Isaac Asimov

5. “Resentment is like taking poison and waiting for the other person to die.” - Malachy McCourt

6. “Let today be the day you stop being haunted by the ghost of yesterday. Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people...but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.” - Steve Maraboli

7. “His love for her was so deeply woven with resentment that he could not untangle the two.” - Kim Edwards

8. “With each opportunity before me, God presented me with a choice. I could accept His offerings, His wisdom, His grace. Or I could choose to hold onto the pain, the anger and the resentment a little longer.” - Sharon E. Rainey

9. “But love like that doesn't just disappear, does it? No matter how powerful the hate, there is always a little love left, underneath.Yes. Horrible, isn't it?” - N.K. Jemisin

10. “Holding a grudge & harboring anger/resentment is poison to the soul. Get even with people...but not those who have hurt us, forget them, instead get even with those who have helped us.” - Steve Maraboli

11. “Resentment is often a woman's inner signal that she has been ignoring an important God-given responsibility - that of making choices.” - Brenda Waggoner

12. “Anger, resentment and jealousy doesn't change the heart of others-- it only changes yours.” - Shannon Alder

13. “Time doesn't heal all wounds, only distance can lessen the sting of them.” - Shannon Alder

14. “Odd, don't you think? I have seen war, and invasions and riots. I have heard of massacres and brutalities beyond imagining, and I have kept my faith in the power of civilization to bring men back from the brink. And yet one women writes a letter, and my whole world falls to pieces.You see, she is an ordinary woman. A good one, even. That's the point ... Nothing [a recognizably bad person does] can surprise or shock me, or worry me. But she denounced Julia and sent her to her death because she resented her, and because Julia is a Jew.I thought in this simple contrast between the civilized and the barbaric, but I was wrong. It is the civilized who are the truly barbaric, and the [Nazi] Germans are merely the supreme expression of it.” - Iain Pears

15. “Never hold resentments for the person who tells you what you need to hear; count them among your truest, most caring, and valuable friends.” - Mike Norton

16. “The bittersweet about truth is that nothing could be more hurtful, yet nothing could be more helpful.” - Mike Norton

17. “Leo lowered his screwdriver. He looked at the ceiling and shook his head like, What am I gonna do with this guy? "I try very hard to be annoying," Leo said. "Don't insult my ability to annoy. And how am I supposed to resent you if you go apologizing? I'm a lowly mechanic. You're like the prince of the sky, son of the Lord of the Universe. I'm supposed to resent you." "Lord of the Universe?" (Jason) "Sure, you're all-bam! Lightning man. And 'Watch me fly. I am the eagle that soars-" (Leo) "Shut up, Valdez." (Jason) Leo managed a little smile. "Yeah, see. I do annoy you." "I apologize for apologizing." (Jason) "Thank you." He went back to work, but the tension had eased between them. Leo still looked sad and exhausted-just not quite so angry.” - Rick Riordan

18. “Sometimes, inflexibility creates a callus, scarring over all the bitterness and disappointment improperly, and there is no honest way to break that silence or that infinite distance, not even in death, not even in memory.” - Víctor del Árbol

19. “For seven days she lay in bed looking sullenly at the ceiling as though resenting the death she had cultivated for so many years. Like some people who cannot vomit despite horrible nausea, she lay there unable to die, resisting death as she had resisted life, frozen with resentment of process and change.” - William S. Burroughs

20. “Pride and resentment are not indigenous to the human heart; and perhaps it is due to the gardener's innate love of the exotic that we take such pains to make them thrive.” - Hope Mirrlees

21. “The city centre was still crawling with Christmas shoppers looking to add to their already burgeoning piles of gifts. To Scott they were like ants at a picnic, teeming from store to store, trailing oversized carrier bags and infants behind them as they went. Scott felt alien in this environment; pulling up his hood he hurried through the crowds, dodging pushchairs, lit cigarettes and charity collection tins.” - R.D. Ronald

22. “I eventually came to understand that in harboring the anger, the bitterness and resentment towards those that had hurt me, I was giving the reins of control over to them. Forgiving was not about accepting their words and deeds. Forgiving was about letting go and moving on with my life. In doing so, I had finally set myself free.” - Isabel Lopez

23. “Richard Nixon was a serial collector of resentments.” - Rick Perlstein

24. “Being hated by the right people was no impediment to success. The unpolished were everywhere the majority.” - Rick Perlstein

25. “We drove on in silence, Dad shaking his head in disgust every few minutes. I stared at him, wondering how it was we got to this place. How the same man who held his infant daughter and kissed her tiny face could one day be so determined to shut her out of his life, out of his heart. How, even when she reached out to him in distress - Please, Dad, come get me, come save me - all he could do was accuse her. How that same daughter could look at him and feel nothing but contempt and blame and resentment, because that's all that radiated off of him for so many years and it had become contagious.” - Jennifer Brown

26. “...his soul (was) ringing like a well-struck bell. But it was a bell that rang with more than joy and adoration — there was the sound there too of anger and resentment. She would not look at him because she did not want to be in his presence. She hated him and he (how could he not?) hated her in return.” - Paul Hoffman

27. “Respect doesn't come without a little resentment.” - Neal Shusterman

28. “This whole goddam house stinks of ghosts. I don’t mind so much being haunted by a dead ghost, but I resent like hell being haunted by a half-dead one.” - J.D. Salinger

29. “...you want things to remain the same, which they never can, and so you’re wounded by your own feelings & resentful others don’t seem to care...” - John Geddes

30. “The resentment I felt inside was not hatred for being imprisoned or for Victor who had betrayed me but something deeper: a rebellion against the very way of things that condemned men to be imprisoned inside their own identities.” - MacDonald Harris

31. “My relationship with him was defined by these complex emotions, this mixture of gratitude and resentment.” - Otsuichi

32. “Strange combination, isn't it--gratitude and resentment? But this is the way I think. Actually, I think everybody thinks that way. Even the children of the humans who died long ago, I think they lived their lives holding similar contradictory thoughts about their parents. They were raised to learn about love and death, and they lived out their lives passing from the sunny spots to the shady spots of this world.” - Otsuichi

33. “Life is too short for anger, resentment, hostility and "should have." It is too short to put off doing what brings you joy. Live each day as if it were your last, because one day it will be.” - Julie-Anne

34. “There is enough heartache and sorrow in this life without our adding to it through our own stubbornness, bitterness, and resentment.” - Dieter F. Uchtdorf

35. “Time heals all wounds or Time wounds all heels. Take your pick... oh, life's small choices.” - Carol Morgan

36. “God is always trying to give blessings to us, but our minds are usually too full to receive them.” - Shannon L. Alder

37. “Do we really want to be rid of our resentments, our anger, our fear? Many of us cling to our fears, doubts, self-loathing or hatred because there is a certain distorted security in familiar pain. It seems safer to embrace what we know than to let go of it for fear of the unknown. (Narcotics Anonymous Book/page 33)” - Narcotics Anonymous

38. “One cannot always keep an adder in one's breast to feed one, nor rise up every night to sow thorns in the garden of one's soul.” - Oscar Wilde