Bitter Poison Quotes & Sayings

BITTER: always a bit unanticipated. Coffee, chocolate, rosemary, citrus rinds, wine. Once, when we were wild, it told us about poison. The mouth still hesitates at each new encounter. We urge it forward, say, Adapt. Now, enjoy it. — Stephanie Danler

But his days were shortened by poison, perhaps the most incurable of poisons; the stings of remorse and despair, and the bitter remembrance of lost glory. — Edward Gibbon

Pleasure from the senses seems like nectar at first, but it is bitter as poison in the end. — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

The tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste out sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sout with the same tongue. — Neil Gaiman

Thus parents, by humouring and cockering them when little, corrupt the principles of nature in their children, and wonder afterwards to taste the bitter waters, when they themselves have poison'd the fountain. — John Locke

My own chocolate center has filled up with poison,
the roses he gave me all twisted black — Terra Elan McVoy

Was love then like a bag of assorted sweets passed around from which one might choose more than once? Some might sting the tongue, some invoke night perfume. Some had centers as bitter as gall, some blended honey and poison, some were quickly swallowed. And among the common bull's-eyes and peppermints a few rare ones; one or two with deadly needles at the heart, another that brought clam and gentle pleasure. Were his fingers closing on that one? — Annie Proulx

The glass bottle does not know its own contents. It has no idea whether it is a vessel for the most delicious apple cider, a lovingly crafted wine, or a bitter poison. — Lang Leav

Renounce and enjoy." Those who are compulsively attached to the results of action cannot really enjoy what they do; they get downcast when things do not work out and cling more desperately when they do. So the Gita classifies the karma of attachment as pleasant at first, but "bitter as poison in the end" (18:38), because of the painful bondage of conditioning. Again, — Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa

You took a poison arrow and you aimed it at my heart. It's heavy and it's bitter, and it's tearing me apart. — Madonna Ciccone

..."Unforgiveness," said Pastor Allen, "is the cup of poison that we pour for another, and then drink ourselves."
'You are becoming a very bitter and twisted person, Hana Du Rose,' she chided herself as they sang the final hymn.

From the New Du Rose Matriarch — K.T. Bowes

What is food to one man is bitter poison to others. — Lucretius

There is no man who will not be grieved at the time of his chastisement; and there is not man who will not endure a bitter time, when he must drink the poison of temptations. Without them, it is not possible to obtain a strong will. When he has often experienced the help of God in temptations, a man also obtains strong faith. — Isaac Of Nineveh

To wed his eldest daughter, Calla, to Aegor. Bitter his steel may have been, but worse was his tongue. He spilled poison in Daemon's ear, and with him came the clamoring of other knights and lords with grievances. — George R R Martin

Why should I not love her? Harry, I do love her. She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her die in the gloom of an Italian Tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in one of them. — Oscar Wilde

Give heed to the cause of the holy Roman Church, mother of all churches and teacher of the faith, whom you by the order of God, have consecrated by your blood. Against the Roman Church, you warned, lying teachers are rising, introducing ruinous sects, and drawing upon themselves speedy doom. Their tongues are fire, a restless evil, full of deadly poison. They have bitter zeal, contention in their hearts, and boast and lie against the truth. — Pope Leo X

For my own part, my constant prayer is that I may know the worst of my case, whatever the knowledge may cost me. I know that an accurate estimate of my own heart can never be otherwise than lowering to my self-esteem; but God forbid that I should be spared the humiliation which springs from the truth! The sweet red apples of self-esteem are deadly poison; who would wish to be destroyed thereby? The bitter fruits of self-knowledge are always healthful, especially if washed down with the waters of repentance, and sweetened with a draught from the wells of salvation; he who loves his own soul will not despise them. — Charles Haddon Spurgeon

Envy, bitter envy, was permeating his soul drop by drop, like a poison that tainted all his pleasures and made his life hateful. — Guy De Maupassant

Bad temper is its own scourge. Few things are more bitter than to feel bitter. A man's venom poisons himself more than his victim. — Charles Buxton

We find beauty in poison, and we love the bitter taste. — Cole McCade

Parents wonder why the streams are bitter, when they themselves poison the fountain. — John Locke

A bitter thing cannot be made sweet.
The taste of anything can be changed.
But poison cannot be changed into nectar. — B.R. Ambedkar

There are days when solitude is a heady wine that intoxicates you with freedom, others when it is a bitter tonic, and still others when it is a poison that makes you beat your head against the wall. — Colette

When older people get together there is something unflappable about them; you can sense they've tasted all the heavy, bitter, spicy food of life, extract its poison, and will now spend ten or fifteen years in a state of perfect equilibrium and enviable morality. They are happy with themselves. They have renounced the vain attempts of youth to adapt the world to their desires. They have failed and now, they can relax. In a few years they will once again be troubled by a great anxiety, but this time it will be a fear of death; it will have a strange effect on their tastes, it will make them indifferent, or eccentric, or moody, incomprehensible to their families, strangers to their children. But between the ages of forty and sixty they enjoy a precarious sense of tranquility. — Irene Nemirovsky

Socrates dies with honor, surrounded by his disciples listening to the most tender words -the easiest death that one could wish to die. Jesus dies in pain, dishonor, mockery, the object of universal cursing - the most horrible death that one could fear. At the receipt of the cup of poison, Socrates blesses him who could not give it to him without tears; Jesus, while suffering the sharpest pains, prays for His most bitter enemies. If Socrates lived and died like a philosopher, Jesus lived and died like a god. — Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Of all the organs, ' said Nehemiah Trot, 'the tongue is the most remarkable. For we use it both to taste our sweet wine and bitter poison, thus also do we utter words both sweet and sour with the same tongue. Go to her! Talk to her! — Neil Gaiman

She sipped the tonic. Her face puckered again. She gagged, covered her mouth and mumbled in disgust, "Oh my God!"
"I said it tasted better, not great."
Abby continued to force the sour tonic down in sips. She could taste a hint of vanilla but the potion left a bitter aftertaste that was similar to vinegar. Her stomach gurgled and burned.
"Water," she coughed after her last sip of tonic.
"No. You'll dilute it," Noel said firmly, relieving her of the glass.
Smartly, she rebutted, "Isn't that what you're supposed to do after drinking poison? Or is it throw up? — Devon Ashley

Do not faint; the wicked may hold the bitter cup to your head, but God mixeth it, and there is no poison in it. They strike, but God moves the rod; Shimei curseth, but it is because the Lord bids him. — Samuel Rutherford

Another Weeping Woman
Pour the unhappiness out
From your too bitter heart,
Which grieving will not sweeten.
Poison grows in this dark.
It is in the water of tears
Its black blooms rise.
The magnificent cause of being,
The imagination, the one reality
In this imagined world
Leaves you
With him for whom no phantasy moves,
And you are pierced by a death. — Wallace Stevens

The grapes that my hands wouldn't reach were undoubtedly sour.
But I didn't need sweet fruits that were like a lie. I didn't need things like a fake understanding and a deceptive relationship.
What I wanted was that sour grape.
Even if it's sour, even if it's bitter, even if it's disgusting, even if it's full of poison, even if it didn't exist, even if I couldn't lay my hands on it, even if I wasn't allowed to wish for it. — Wataru Watari

She is everything to me in life. Night after night I go to see her play. One evening she is Rosalind, and the next evening she is Imogen. I have seen her the in the gloom of an Italian tomb, sucking the poison from her lover's lips. I have watched her wandering through the forest of Arden, disguised as a pretty boy in hose and doublet and dainty cap. She has been mad, and has come into the presence of a guilty king, and given him rue to wear, and bitter herbs to taste of. She has been innocent, and the black hands of jealousy have crushed her reed-like throat. I have seen her in every age and in every costume. Ordinary women never appeal to one's imagination. They are limited to their century. No glamour ever transfigures them. One knows their minds as easily as one knows their bonnets. One can always find them. There is no mystery in any of them: — Oscar Wilde

The bitter hatreds that now poison Middle Eastern politics are rooted in the real or perceived wrong of the setting up of a Jewish State in an Islamic region. In view of all that the Jews had been through, it must have seemed a fair and humane solution. Probably deep familiarity with the Old Testament had given the European and American decision-makers some sort of idea that this really was the historic homeland of the Jews. — Richard Dawkins

If you lived in London, where the whole system is one of false good-fellowship, and you may know a man for twenty years without finding out that he hates you like poison, you would soon have your eyes opened. There we do unkind things in a kind way: we say bitter things in a sweet voice: we always give our friends chloroform when we tear them to pieces. — George Bernard Shaw

Not all poison was bitter. Some of the deadliest poisons in the world tasted sweet; they were that much more dangerous because of it. — Nenia Campbell

I give you bitter pills, in a sugar coating. The pills are harmless - the poison's in the sugar — James St. James

Poison! Poison gasses, you idiot! Defend yourself! Eat the celery! I thrust a numbing hand into an inside coat pocket, pulled out the piece of celery, and chewed on it. I always keep a piece handy, pre-prepared with all kinds of useful substances, for just such occasions as this. It tasted bitter as I chewed, but it cleared my head rapidly. It's an old trick but a good one, taught me long ago by a Travelling Doctor I met at the Hawk's Wind Bar & Grill. — Simon R. Green

Her world fragmented into dozens of sharp, cutting shards, shedding the salty blood and saltier tears that ringed the bitter cocktail of her despair. She was caterpillar and butterfly, both, caught in a cocoon of raw nerves and open sores; she was insanity, wrapped up in the thin, transient wrappings of a temporary lucidity; and she was afraid, because an innate desire lay in the bottom reaches of her psyche for the very poison that was killing her. — Nenia Campbell

Every poison is not bitter but definitely they all kill. — M.F. Moonzajer

What is whiter than snow?' he said. 'The truth,' said Grania.
'What is the best colour?' said Finn. 'The colour of childhood,' said she.
'What is hotter than fire?' 'The face of a hospitable man when he sees a stranger coming in, and the house empty.'
'What has a taste more bitter than poison?' 'The reproach of an enemy.'
'What is best for a champion?' 'His doings to be high, and his pride to be low.'
'What is the best of jewels?' 'A knife.'
'What is sharper than a sword?' 'The wit of a woman between two men.'
'What is quicker than the wind?' said Finn then. 'A woman's mind,' said Grania. And indeed she was telling no lie when she said that. — Lady Augusta Gregory

Fine food is poison. It can be as bitter as antimony and bitter almonds and as repulsive as swallowing live toads. Like the poison the emperor took every day to stop himself being poisoned, fine food must be taken daily until the system becomes immune to its ravages and the taste buds beaten and abused to the point where they not only accept but savour every vile concoction under the sun. — Lisa St. Aubin De Teran

I wondered why it had to be so poisonous. Oleanders could live through anything, they could stand heat, drought, neglect, and put out thousands of waxy blooms. So what did they need poison for? Couldn't they just be bitter? They weren't like rattlesnakes, they didn't even eat what they killed. The way she boiled it down, distilled it, like her hatred. Maybe it was a poison in the soil, something about L.A., the hatred, the callousness, something we didn't want to think about, that the plant concentrated in its tissues. Maybe it wasn't a source of poison, but just another victim. — Janet Fitch

In the morning when he opened his eyes and when his glance fell upon the yellow linen of the curtain by the window, it seemed to him that its yellowness was suffused with the crimson of dark desire and that there was some strange and eerie tenseness in it. It seemed that the sun was insistently and fervently concentrating its burning and bitter rays towards this linen pierced by a golden color and summoning and demanding, and disturbing. And in reply to this fascinating external tension of gold and crimson the veins of the Youth were filled with a fiery agitation. His muscles were suffused with a resilient strength and his heart became like a spring of ardent fires. Sweetly pierced by millions of exciting, burning and arousing needles he leapt up from the bed and with a childlike gleeful laugh he began to leap and dance around the room without dressing.
("The Poison Garden") — Valery Bryusov

Without You"

My Pillow gazes upon me at night
Empty as a gravestone;
I never thought it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Not to lie down asleep in your hair.

I lie alone in a silent house,
The hanging lamp darkened,
And gently stretch out my hands
To gather in yours,
And softly press my warm mouth
Toward you, and kiss myself, exhausted and weak-
Then suddenly I'm awake
And all around me the cold night grows still.
The star in the window shines clearly-
Where is your blond hair,
Where your sweet mouth?

Now I drink pain in every delight
And poison in every wine;
I never knew it would be so bitter
To be alone,
Alone, without you. — Hermann Hesse