bitterness

Whenever evil befalls us, we ought to ask ourselves, after the first suffering, how we can turn it into good. So shall we take occasion, from one bitter root, to raise perhaps many flowers.

Patience is bitter, but its fruit is sweet.

Love can sweep you off your feet and carry you along in a way you've never known before. But the ride always ends, and you end up feeling lonely and bitter. Wait. It's not love I'm describing. I'm thinking of a monorail.

Abide with me; fast falls the eventide; The darkness deepens; Lord with me abide; When other helpers fail, and comforts flee, Help of the helpless, O abide with me. Swift to its close ebbs out life's little day; Earth's joys grow dim, its glories pass away; Change and decay in all around I see; O Thou Who changest not, abide with me. I need Thy presence ev'ry passing hour; What but Thy grace can foil the tempter's pow'r? Who like Thyself my guide and stay can be? Through cloud and sunshine, O abide with me. I fear no foe, with Thee at hand to bless; Ills have no weight, and tears no bitterness; Where is death's sting? where, grave, thy victory? I triumph still, if Thou abide with me. Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom, and point me to the skies; Heav'n's morning breaks and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

I am sorry to think that you do not get a man's most effective criticism until you provoke him. Severe truth is expressed with some bitterness.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it.

To keep the Golden Rule we must put ourselves in other people's places, but to do that consists in and depends upon picturing ourselves in their places. If we had the imagination to do that there would be fewer families estranged by misunderstanding between the older and the younger generations, fewer bitter judgments would pass our lips, fewer racial, national and class prejudices would stain our lives.

Bitterness imprisons life; love releases it. Bitterness paralyzes life; love empowers it. Bitterness sours life; love heals it. Bitterness blinds life; love anoints its eye.

A couple months ago I noticed that I hadn't really laughed for a long time. . . . That's come back quite well, I'm enjoying more things. . . . I'd say that I've almost completely recovered from the past few years, still cynical, but not really bitter.

With memory set smarting like a reopened wound, a man's past is not simply a dead history, an outworn preparation of the present: it is a still quivering part of himself, bringing shudders and bitter flavours and the tinglings of a merited shame.