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Bitterness   /bˈɪtərnəs/   Listen
Bitterness

noun
1.
A feeling of deep and bitter anger and ill-will.  Synonyms: gall, rancor, rancour, resentment.
2.
A rough and bitter manner.  Synonyms: acerbity, acrimony, jaundice, tartness, thorniness.
3.
The taste experience when quinine or coffee is taken into the mouth.  Synonym: bitter.
4.
The property of having a harsh unpleasant taste.  Synonym: bitter.






WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








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"Bitterness" Quotes from Famous Books



... out of bounds now, and by the bitterness of his vituperation he seemed to invite death. Dave interrupted his ...
— Heart of the Sunset • Rex Beach

... their jealousy of each other. Foreign affairs were mingled with domestic politics, and the Democratic and Federalist parties became avowedly organized. Washington was for a time allowed to keep aloof from the contest—not for a long time. A circumstance insignificant in itself increased the bitterness of the contest out of doors. Democratic societies had been formed on the model of the Jacobin clubs of France. Washington regarded them with alarm, and the unmeasured expression of his sentiments on this head subjected him to a share in the attacks made upon the party accused of undue fondness for ...
— Great Men and Famous Women. Vol. 4 of 8 • Various

... help to give the black cloud Tyranny a rather dirty silver lining. I am the False Steward, in the interest of the Superfluously Comfortable. My Masters sit upon the King's Highway, taking toll in bitterness and humiliation from every traveller along that road. For surely comfort is every man's heritage, surely the happy years should come to every man—not doled out, not meanly dependent on his moral orthodoxy, ...
— Living Alone • Stella Benson

... The Panther's heart is full of bitterness toward the white people. He saw, by hurrying off, a chance to do greater harm to those whom he regards as intruders upon the hunting grounds of his people; that is why the two did ...
— The Phantom of the River • Edward S. Ellis

... little if any attention to the British official statements, which of course should be received as of equal weight with the American. His comments on the actions are generally very fair, the book never being disfigured by bitterness toward the British; but he is certainly wrong, for example, in ascribing the loss of the Chesapeake solely to accident, that of the Argus solely to her inferiority in force, and so on. His disposition to praise all the American commanders may be generous, ...
— The Naval War of 1812 • Theodore Roosevelt

... from the mourning came anger and then a bitterness that rose to blind him. For the rest of that day he tried—he could not have counted the times. A factor was missing—dimly he knew that. The sun was dull red along the valley when he desisted; his hands were raw and bleeding, and seeing that, a sound rose in his ...
— The Beginning • Henry Hasse

... waters, thou sayest there, thou wilt not heal.[47] My returning to any sin, if I should return to the ability of sinning over all my sins again, thou wouldst not pardon. Heal this earth, O my God, by repentant tears, and heal these waters, these tears, from all bitterness, from all diffidence, from all dejection, by establishing my irremovable assurance in thee. Thy Son went about healing all manner of sickness.[48] (No disease incurable, none difficult; he healed them in passing). Virtue went out of him, and he healed all,[49] all ...
— Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions - Together with Death's Duel • John Donne

... for my parents filled my heart and overflowed in my eyes. I have, I confess, had moments of bitterness toward them. But that ...
— The Log-Cabin Lady, An Anonymous Autobiography • Unknown

... did not lessen the pathetic appeal of the solitary figure facing the ridicule of the crowd. She felt that he always honestly believed himself in the right; she knew that he was vain; that he had an almost monstrous conception of his dignity; and, realizing the bitterness of that public humiliation which he had undergone, she understood the wrath, the unspeakable pain and sense of outrage, which must ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... at the request of the Hornes, the Gellibrands, and the Gregsons. The effort was unavailing. In 1834, it was renewed with still more earnestness: the former parties, reinforced by many important accessions, maintained the popular cause. Repeated disappointments excited some bitterness, which was expressed in strong terms.[188] Mr. Thomas Horne reminded the home government that they would make "a dissatisfied and turbulent people, ready to use their power, and assert their rights, if necessary, by force of arms." He advised the ...
— The History of Tasmania, Volume I (of 2) • John West

... that "bitterness," that "morbidity" is transformed by this magic alchemy into breadth and sweetness and all health. Now we have for our children the influence of "normal womanhood"—of "the wife ...
— The Forerunner, Volume 1 (1909-1910) • Charlotte Perkins Gilman

... left him capable in that moment of but one thought, and that was that he loved her wildly, with a love which it had been madness for him to think he could ever overcome or forget. But it was not with soft and melting emotions, but rather in great bitterness, that he owned the mastery of the passion which he had tried so hard to throw off. He knew that if she despised him before, she must hate and loathe him now. Knowing this it gave him a cruel pleasure to crush her, and to make her tears flow, and even while his glowing eyes devoured ...
— The Duke of Stockbridge • Edward Bellamy

... and opened it. It contained nearly two hundred grains of a white powder, a few particles of which he carried to his lips. The extreme bitterness of the substance precluded all doubt; it was certainly the precious extract of quinine, ...
— The Secret of the Island • W.H.G. Kingston (translation from Jules Verne)

... happiness, you see, Miss Carley," Gilbert answered with a bitter smile. "Yes, you were right; it was I who was to have been Marian Nowell's husband, whose every hope of the future was bound up in her. But all that is past; whatever bitterness I felt against her at first—and I do not think I was ever very bitter—has passed away. I am nothing now but her friend, her steadfast ...
— Fenton's Quest • M. E. Braddon

... whole family and his whole people—nobles, priests, the middle classes, and the peasantry—nourished an angry resentment against the nation that was overturning Europe. The new Empress, whose family had been deprived of the Duchy of Modena, was conspicuous for the bitterness of her indignation and of her political feelings. In the eyes of all the Austrians, great or small, poor or rich, the French were the hereditary enemies, the invaders, the destroyers of the throne and the ...
— The Happy Days of the Empress Marie Louise • Imbert De Saint-Amand

... was not probable that Sant' Ilario would make any exhibition of his jealousy for some time to come. As he paced the floor of his room, the bitterness of his situation slowly sank from the surface, leaving his face calm and almost serene. He forced himself to look at the facts again and again, trying bravely to be impartial and to survey them as though he were the judge and not the ...
— Sant' Ilario • F. Marion Crawford

... could really please you. I have been a vain, empty-headed girl all my life. I cared for myself more than anything on earth. I do now! You think I am brave and uncomplaining, but it is all a sham. I am too proud to whine, but in reality I am seething with bitterness and rebellion. I am longing to get well, not to lead a self-sacrificing life like Rachel Greaves, but to feel fit again, and wear pretty clothes, and dance, and flirt, and be admired—that's what I want most, ...
— The Heart of Una Sackville • Mrs. George de Horne Vaizey

... certainly very entertaining and instructive; but, in my judgment, his sentiments upon many points, and more especially his mode of expression, are unwise and uncharitable. After all, are not most of the things shown up with so much bitterness by him mere national foibles, parallels to which every people has and must ...
— The Best of the World's Classics, Vol. V (of X) - Great Britain and Ireland III • Various

... work of the world. It means that life is too short to hang around the loafing places with the driftwood of humanity listening to their stories of failure and drinking in with liquor some of their bitterness against those who have toiled and won the fruits of their toil. It means that we will not go out of our way to seek the friendship of men and women who are simply endeavoring to gain happiness in life ...
— Laugh and Live • Douglas Fairbanks

... the hours and times of your desire? I have no precious time at all to spend, Nor services to do, till you require. Nor dare I chide the world-without-end hour Whilst I, my sovereign, watch the clock for you, Nor think the bitterness of absence sour When you have bid your servant once adieu; Nor dare I question with my jealous thought Where you may be, or your affairs suppose, But, like a sad slave, stay and think of nought Save, where you are how happy you ...
— Book of English Verse • Bulchevy

... of endurance, O! woman, to the brim. Yea! until the drops of bitterness have overflowed and fallen upon the sands, but now thou art come back, rather than let thee go I would drive this ...
— Desert Love • Joan Conquest

... little dreamed, alas, of the dreadful fate soon to overtake us. That fate which was to dissever a loving and united family, causing three of its members to pass through the valley of the shadow of death, and subjecting the survivors to suffering that often made them cry out in the bitterness of their hearts "why was I spared to suffer such torture, when death would have been such ...
— Seven and Nine years Among the Camanches and Apaches - An Autobiography • Edwin Eastman

... passionate appeal gained one last chance, the only possible chance, for Greek freedom, who broke down the barrier of an inveterate jealousy, who brought Thebans to fight beside Athenians, and who thus won at the eleventh hour a victory for the spirit of loyal union which took away at least one bitterness from ...
— Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 8, Slice 2 - "Demijohn" to "Destructor" • Various

... of water was precipitated into our boat, carrying away one of the sails, and the greater part of the effects which the sailors had saved from the Medusa. Our bark was nearly sunk; the females and the children lay rolling in its bottom, drinking the waters of bitterness; and their cries, mixed with the roaring of the waves and the furious north wind, increased the horrors of the scene. My unfortunate father then experienced the most excruciating agony of mind. The idea of the loss which the shipwreck had occasioned to him, and the danger ...
— Perils and Captivity • Charlotte-Adelaide [nee Picard] Dard

... new-born tenderness lately exhibited by her husband had gradually diminished; while the assumption of the favourite, who was once more in her turn about to become a mother, exceeded all decent limits. The daily and almost hourly disputes between the royal couple were renewed with greater bitterness than ever, and when, on the 21st of January, Madame de Verneuil, like herself, and again under the same roof, gave birth to a daughter,[210] Marie de Medicis no longer attempted to suppress the violence of her indignation; nor was it until the King, alike chafed ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... dregs out of the cup of hate; The bitterness of sorrow, shame, and scorn; Where'er the tongues of mortals curse their fate, She saw herself an outcast and forlorn; And hating sore the day that she was born, Down in the dust she cast her golden head, There with rent raiment ...
— Helen of Troy • Andrew Lang

... found it frequently on the wooded hillsides of the state. The taste when raw is mild at first, but soon develops a slight bitterness which, however, is lost in cooking. Fried in butter they are excellent. July ...
— The Mushroom, Edible and Otherwise - Its Habitat and its Time of Growth • M. E. Hard

... lower orders, and mingled itself with the political dissatisfaction for which unhappily there was supposed to be some ground. Paine's spirit is that of English deism animated by the political exasperation which had characterised the French. His doctrines come from English deism; his bitterness from Voltaire; his ...
— History of Free Thought in Reference to The Christian Religion • Adam Storey Farrar

... sae richt and weel wi' the world as we thought it in you days. We'd closed our een to much of bitterness and hatred and malice that was loose and seeking victims in the hearts of men. Aye, it was the Hun loosed the war upon us. It was he who was responsible for the calamity that overtook the world—and that will mak' him suffer maist of all in the end, as is but just and richt. ...
— Between You and Me • Sir Harry Lauder

... put out by mustard gas, maybe," I murmured, remembering with bitterness some of the fellows who ...
— Wings of the Wind • Credo Harris

... in his bitterness, "very much as if you thought she wasn't sane. Of course I know she'd put a cheque for a hundred pounds into a drawer and forget all about it. But it would be more proof of insanity in Jinny if she ...
— The Creators - A Comedy • May Sinclair

... futility. But if we would not do that, it is already plain to all our Brethren a conflict must come. I know not what bitterness of conflict must presently come, before the little folks will suffer us to live as we need to live. All the Brethren have thought of that. Cossar, of whom I told you: he too has ...
— The Food of the Gods and How It Came to Earth • H.G. Wells

... pronounced than he falls from his horse in a swoon. He is taken up for dead, and conveyed to the nearest house, where he lies for a time insensible; his soul, no doubt, leaving his body to obtain pardon from her whom he had hastened to a premature grave, to return to taste the bitterness of ...
— Memoirs And Historical Chronicles Of The Courts Of Europe - Marguerite de Valois, Madame de Pompadour, and Catherine de Medici • Various

... letter has come as the greatest surprise. I suppose mothers cannot expect to keep for ever at their daughters' side, but the parting is robbed of its bitterness when other considerations ...
— Punch, Or The London Charivari, Vol. 156, April 9, 1919 • Various

... set out for Paris by easy stages. The cap was put on the climax for me by remembering how he and I had walked over that very ground three years before, in the sunshine of life and summer. Brian too thought of the past, but not in bitterness. I hid my anguish from him, but it gnawed the heart of me with the teeth of a rat. I couldn't see what Brian had ever done to deserve such a fate as his, and I began to feel wicked, wicked. It seemed that destiny had built up ...
— Everyman's Land • C. N. Williamson and A. M. Williamson

... Pity for her would make him undergo any torture rather than she should suffer again. But to divulge our old connection would entail her discovery of me. and I questioned if even the saving of Gavin could destroy the bitterness of that. ...
— The Little Minister • J.M. Barrie

... cause. She recalled her gunboat and as a concession to obtain peace, was permitted to acquire some territory in the French Congo country. But German newspapers and German political utterances showed much bitterness. Growling and snarling grew apace in Germany, and to those who made a close study of the situation it became evident that Germany sooner or later ...
— History of the American Negro in the Great World War • W. Allison Sweeney

... of the narrow seas. The grievances of the English East India Company against its Dutch rival with regard to the seizure of certain ships and especially as to the possession of a small island named Poeloe-Rum in the Moluccas led to a growing feeling of bitterness and hostility. A special embassy, headed by De Witt's cousin, Beverweert, was sent to London in the autumn of 1660 to try to bring about a friendly understanding, but was fruitless. At the same time George Downing, a skilful intriguer and adventurer, who after ...
— History of Holland • George Edmundson

... another victim of war! He spoke of the loss of his arm, notwithstanding, with as much coolness as if it were the loss of a tooth; yet; I question not, that in secret, he mourned over the calamity in bitterness of heart. Men never wear the mask more completely than when excited and stimulated by the rivalry of arms. Bulstrode, too, at Ravensnest! He could be carried nowhere else, so easily; and, should his wound be ...
— Satanstoe • James Fenimore Cooper

... reason this seemed the one thing unbearable in her experience. The bitterness of it all welled up and overflowed in a few hot tears that stung her hands as they dropped slowly from the burning eyes. It was a long time before the little blinds swung out, and the doctor appeared with her husband. Preston was ...
— The Web of Life • Robert Herrick

... a common thing to hear the bitterness of religious discord here deplored. I for one, looking back on the history of past years, cannot think, as some seem to do, that it has increased. On the contrary, it seems to me that it has greatly diminished in violence ...
— At Last • Charles Kingsley

... explained by Nilakantha as endangered or made doubtful. What Sanjaya says is that if it is not so, thou shalt then have to undergo the bitterness of ruling over the whole world bestowed upon thee by the Pandavas. Either the Pandavas will snatch away thy kingdom or make thee ruler of the whole after slaying thy sons. Either of these alternatives would ...
— The Mahabharata of Krishna-Dwaipayana Vyasa, Volume 2 • Kisari Mohan Ganguli

... reasoning the thing seemed simplicity itself when it was once explained. He read the thought upon my features, and his smile had a tinge of bitterness. ...
— Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes • Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

... poor Hetty, and sometimes wish in bitterness of spirit that I had prayed more myself, and thought less of my beauty! As you say, we are now safe and need only go a ...
— The Deerslayer • James Fenimore Cooper

... friend," resumed Athos, whom the almost imperceptible bitterness of D'Artagnan had not escaped. "Pardon me! can I have ...
— Ten Years Later - Chapters 1-104 • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... the night; he had night almost quite through the way; also, these fiends were busy about him, as if they would have torn him in pieces. Many have spoke of it, but none can tell what the Valley of the Shadow of Death should mean, until they come in it themselves. 'The heart knows its own bitterness; and a stranger intermeddleth not with its joy.' To be here is a ...
— The Works of John Bunyan • John Bunyan

... with bitterness, "if no misfortune can curb thy pride, in vain would we rebuild thy throne. It is these Commons, Margaret of Anjou—these English Commons—this Saxon People, that can alone secure to thee the holding of the realm which the right arm wins. And, ...
— The Last Of The Barons, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... declares through her heroine,—"continual restraint in the most trivial matters, unconditional submission to orders, which as a mere child I soon discovered to be unreasonable, because inconsistent and contradictory. Thus are we destined to experience a mixture of bitterness with the recollection of our most innocent enjoyment." Edward, as the mother's favorite, escaped her severity; but it fell upon Mary with double force, and was with her carried out with a thoroughness that laid its shortcomings bare, and consequently forced ...
— Mary Wollstonecraft • Elizabeth Robins Pennell

... Roberta's exact words, but I am sure I have given the substance of them, and I cannot exaggerate the defiant bitterness of her tone. She was a powerful devil's advocate and I saw that wavering Penelope (if it still was Penelope) was deeply impressed by this false and wicked reasoning. She looked at me out of her wonderful eyes—unflinching, cruel, then the balance ...
— Possessed • Cleveland Moffett

... all right and I feel my duty's done, I'll probably go back to the Cape and leave you to him, or somebody else able to look out for you. Until then I'm afraid," with a smile which had a trace of bitterness in it; "I'm afraid you'll have to do the best you can with me. I'll try to be no more of a nuisance than ...
— Cap'n Warren's Wards • Joseph C. Lincoln

... was bitterness in his tone. "He brought me letters regularly. These were alleged to come from those who would prosecute me if I did not keep ...
— The Motor Girls On Cedar Lake - The Hermit of Fern Island • Margaret Penrose

... prove the justice of their contempt by her fate. For having saved the man who was to her as a husband, she was rewarded in this way with cruel death by the deity, but Laodice was advanced to honour. The bitterness of these words remains to ...
— The Story of My Heart • Richard Jefferies

... supposed death of Mr Spinney had been occasioned by her violence, and she looked forward with alarm, as great as the regret with which she looked back upon her former behaviour. When she called to mind her unfeeling conduct towards her husband—the many years of bitterness she had created for him, her infraction of the marriage vow—the solemn promise before God to love, honour, and obey, daily and hourly violated,—her unjust hatred of her only son,—her want of charity towards ...
— Newton Forster - The Merchant Service • Captain Frederick Marryat

... lived through a first-rate war, not in the field, but at home, and kept their heads, can possibly understand the bitterness of Shakespeare and Swift, who both went through this experience. The horror of Peer Gynt in the madhouse, when the lunatics, exalted by illusions of splendid talent and visions of a dawning millennium, crowned him as their emperor, was tame in comparison. ...
— Heartbreak House • George Bernard Shaw

... more. O excellent Sovereign, come to thine abode! Look at me; I am thy sister who loveth thee. Do not stay far from me, O beautiful youth. Come to thine abode with haste, with haste. I see thee no more. My heart is full of bitterness on account of thee. Mine eyes seek thee; I seek thee to behold thee. will it be long ere I see thee? Will it be long ere I see thee? (O) excellent Sovereign, will it be long ere I see thee? Beholding thee is happiness; Beholding thee ...
— Egyptian Literature

... there has been much rejoicing, and the reverses have given place to victories. But the victories have been bought by the sacrifice of human souls. The altar has been saturated with the blood of fathers and sons. The bitterness of sorrow has wrung human hearts in the dear old homeland. In the mansion, in the cottage, in city and in village, tidings of death have found a place. But Christ, the Prince of Peace, has given peace to many lads on the battlefield. Words ...
— From Aldershot to Pretoria - A Story of Christian Work among Our Troops in South Africa • W. E. Sellers

... things had turned out differently she should have gone away and got over it somehow, but as Magdalena's decision was irrevocable she intended to be the happiest girl in the world; it wouldn't do anybody a bit of good if she wasn't. Magdalena felt no bitterness toward her. She had lost Trennahan; the woman mattered nothing. She would rather it were Helena than another; for who else could make him so happy? But she knew that she should see less of Helena in the future, and she hardly ...
— The Californians • Gertrude Franklin Horn Atherton

... passionately, for without effort there can be no manliness; therefore acquire the habit of self-restraint, the habit of painful effort, physical pain, is a useful one." With such purpose the Negro should have neither servility, bitterness, nor regret, but "instinct with the life of the present rise with ...
— Shadow and Light - An Autobiography with Reminiscences of the Last and Present Century • Mifflin Wistar Gibbs

... evil, this revelation is not fully made. If Christ had done less than die for us, therefore—if He had separated Himself from us, or declined to be one with us, in the solemn experience in which the darkness of sin is sounded and all its bitterness tasted,—there would have been no Atonement. It is impossible to say this of any particular incident in His life, and in so far the unique emphasis laid on His death in the New Testament is justified. But I should ...
— The Atonement and the Modern Mind • James Denney

... my way on the paper to write this. Nothing is changed between us, nothing can ever interfere with sacred confidences, remember. I do not show letters, you need not fear my turning traitress.... Pray for me, dearest friend, that the bitterness of old affections may not be too bitter with me, and that God may turn those salt waters ...
— The Letters of Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1 of 2) • Frederic G. Kenyon

... myself should have sent one to Matelgar to bid him come to the levy, even as he would now send to the other lesser thanes and the franklins round about, in my place. The men were running out even now, north and west and east, as I thought of this in my bitterness, and I watched them, knowing well to whom this one and that ...
— A Thane of Wessex • Charles W. Whistler

... massacre in Virginia. Groundless as these suspicions were, they infuriated the English and caused grave fears for the safety of the Dutch planters. When the justices of the peace took precautions to protect the unfortunate foreigners their action caused discontent and bitterness against the new government. Moreover, the Navigation Acts, recently passed by Parliament, restricting foreign trade would, if enforced, prove especially damaging to the people of the Eastern Shore. Finally, Northampton ...
— Virginia under the Stuarts 1607-1688 • Thomas J. Wertenbaker

... the aristocratic sniff had taken to fierce, no-quarter campaigns in the bitterness of a broken heart. Did the Grays, then, really owe two of their fairest provinces to the lady who had jilted him? Had they to thank the clever wife of him of the Louis XIV. curls, whose intrigues won for her husband command of the army, for another province? It was whispered, too, that ...
— The Last Shot • Frederick Palmer

... happiest and most valuable experience of his life,—how his breach with Wagner almost killed him. And, when we remember, too, that Wagner on his part also declared that he was "alone" after he had lost "that man" (Nietzsche), we begin to perceive that personal bitterness and animosity are out of the question here. We feel we are on a higher plane, and that we must not judge these two men as if they were a couple of little business people who had had ...
— The Case Of Wagner, Nietzsche Contra Wagner, and Selected Aphorisms. • Friedrich Nietzsche.

... pushed on, having a general idea of the direction he should take. It was a week before he reached Loreto, a week of loneliness, hunger, thirst, and torrid monotony. A week, too, of thought and bitterness of spirit. In spite of his love, which never cooled, and his courage, which never quailed, Nature, in her guise of foul and crooked hag, mocked at earthly happiness, at human hope, ...
— The Splendid Idle Forties - Stories of Old California • Gertrude Atherton

... have been enriched by the immigration of large commercial firms from the other side of the new frontier. The great majority of Alsatians, by force of circumstances and family ties, were compelled to remain—French at heart, German according to law. The bitterness and intensity of this feeling, reined-in yet apparent, constitutes the one painful feature of Vosges travel. Of course there is a wide difference between the supporters of retaliation, such journals as L'Alsacien-Lorrain, and quiet folks who hate war, even more than a foreign ...
— In the Heart of the Vosges - And Other Sketches by a "Devious Traveller" • Matilda Betham-Edwards

... graves of the poet's father and brother were overgrown with grass and showed evidences of long neglect. We expressed surprise at this, and the old woman who kept the key to the church replied with some bitterness that the Tennysons "were ashamed to own Somersby since they had become great folks." Anyway, it seems that the poet never visited the place after the family left in 1837. Near the church door was a box with a notice stating that the congregation was small and the people ...
— British Highways And Byways From A Motor Car - Being A Record Of A Five Thousand Mile Tour In England, - Wales And Scotland • Thomas D. Murphy

... could see traces of bitterness against the instructors of his youth in Ernest's manner, and said something ...
— The Way of All Flesh • Samuel Butler

... and it would have maddened me to hop and twitter there in sight of free men with arms in their hands and careers in front of them. Jack Dobson would march by, the sweetness of life for Kate—little dreamed she that I knew it—but for me the bitterness of death. Jack Dobson! I liked Jack, but not clinquant in crimson and gold, with spurs and sword clanking on the hard, frost-bitten road. I laughed at the idea; Jack Dobson, whom I had fought time and time again at school until I could lick him as easily as ...
— The Yeoman Adventurer • George W. Gough

... swelled and took on bitterness as it progressed. Lil's face grew strangely flushed and little veins stood out on her temples. All the pent-up bitterness that had been seething in Ma Mandle's mind broke bounds now, and welled to her lips. Accusation, denial; ...
— Half Portions • Edna Ferber

... own life, and to follow to the Court by short marches, to spare the troops. And so Acomat departed with a great following, on his way to the royal residence. Thus then Acomat had left his host in command of that Melic whom I mentioned, whilst Argon remained in irons, and in such bitterness of heart that he desired ...
— The Travels of Marco Polo, Volume 2 • Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa

... exclamations on the heroism of her brother! They could absolutely spare a thought for the animal! And Evan had risked his life for this, and might die unpitied. The Countess diversified her grief with a deadly bitterness against the heartless Jocelyns. ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... of us will be unhappy for the first few days, but then philosophy will step in and soften the bitterness of parting ...
— The Memoires of Casanova, Complete • Jacques Casanova de Seingalt

... never will be. The establishing of woman on her rightful throne is the greatest of revolutions. It is no child's play. You and I know the conflict of the last twenty years; the ridicule, persecution, denunciation, detraction, the unmixed bitterness of our cup for the last two, when even friends have crucified us. We have so much hope and pluck that none but the Good Father knows how we have suffered. A journal called 'The Rose-bud' might answer ...
— The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 1 of 2) • Ida Husted Harper

... preventing the adhesion of the lids, which is liable to occur upon slight inflammation. 2d. In the ears, where the unctuous wax not only preserves the membrane of the drum and the passage of the ear moist, but also, by its bitterness, prevents the intrusion ...
— A Treatise on Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene (Revised Edition) • Calvin Cutter

... you that I had decided to be governed wholly by his wishes!" she responded at last with what I felt was self-scornful bitterness. ...
— The Leavenworth Case • Anna Katharine Green

... touch upon a topic of domestic bitterness, but candor compels me to say that Roger's evening vigils invariably ended at the ice-box. There are two theories as to this subject of ice-box plundering, one of the husband and the other of the wife. Husbands are prone to think (in their simplicity) that if they take a little of everything ...
— The Haunted Bookshop • Christopher Morley

... he has given! To reproach a man at the very moment that you are doing him a service is sheer madness; it is to mix insult with your favours. We ought not to make our benefits burdensome, or to add any bitterness to them. Even if there be some subject upon which you wish to warn your friend, choose some other time ...
— L. Annaeus Seneca On Benefits • Seneca

... or duty has called down the punishment, and endeavors to atone for past neglect by increased devotion. But if the Manitou be deemed to have shown want of ability or inclination to defend him, he upbraids the guardian power with bitterness and contempt, and threatens to seek a more effectual protector. If the Manitou continue useless, this threat is fulfilled. Fasting and dreaming are again resorted to in the same manner as before, and the vision ...
— The Conquest of Canada (Vol. 1 of 2) • George Warburton

... of repentance. On its negative side it is regarded as the emotion of sorrow excited by reflection upon sin. But sorrow, though accompanying repentance, must not be identified with it. Mere regret, either in the form of bitterness over one's folly, or chagrin on account of discovery, may be but a weak sentiment which exerts little or no influence upon a man's subsequent conduct. Even remorse following the commission of wickedness may only deepen into a paralysing despair which works death rather ...
— Christianity and Ethics - A Handbook of Christian Ethics • Archibald B. C. Alexander

... upon the house of David, and upon the inhabitants of Jerusalem, the spirit of grace and supplications: and they shall look upon ME Whom they have pierced, and they shall mourn for Him, as one mourneth for his only son, and shall be in bitterness for Him, as one that is in bitterness for his firstborn." Zech. ...
— The Mark of the Beast • Sidney Watson

... the end," groaned Staneholme, in bitterness; "I dreamt that I would win at last. I did not love you for your health and strength, or your youth and beauty. I declare to you, Nelly Carnegie, your face is fairer to me, lying lily white on your pillow there, than when ...
— Girlhood and Womanhood - The Story of some Fortunes and Misfortunes • Sarah Tytler

... sad a deterioration as his body. Formerly fine, as befitted the source of fine achievements, it was now deformed by bitterness. The last of those bright qualities, which in other days had endeared him to his friends, were dying now, or perhaps were already dead, In fact, Brantome confessed, it was doubly painful to receive him here; one had to see the wreck not only of a young ...
— Sacrifice • Stephen French Whitman

... wonder at my aunt's anger. Her fears were but the vague anticipations of a wise old woman who had seen the world and used good eyes and a sagacious brain. How little did she or I dream of the tragedy of dishonour into which the mad waste, the growing debts, the bitterness of an insulted and ambitious spirit, were to lead the host of this ...
— Hugh Wynne, Free Quaker • S. Weir Mitchell

... now with reluctance, and that not so much for the purpose of arguing as to what was Sir Richard Burton's religion (that was a matter for himself alone) as of upholding the good faith of his wife. In view also of the peculiar bitterness of the odium theologicum, perhaps it may be permitted me to say at the outset that I have no prejudice on this subject. I am not a Roman Catholic, and therefore cannot be accused of approaching the controversy with what Paley was wont to ...
— The Romance of Isabel Lady Burton Volume II • Isabel Lady Burton & W. H. Wilkins

... who is familiar with mysteries, and is accustomed to mingle on terms of equality with the great and famous. He will bring in a Bill which an M.P. who was once young, has abandoned, and, finding his measure blocked, will discourse with extreme bitterness of the obstruction by which the efforts of ...
— Punch, or, the London Charivari, Volume 98, March 8, 1890. • Various

... nature, who were to be converted by gentleness and justice—not by brutality and oppression. His theories provoked the same ridicule and opposition in Guatemala as elsewhere, though there was not the same bitterness of feeling towards him as existed ...
— Bartholomew de Las Casas; his life, apostolate, and writings • Francis Augustus MacNutt

... grounds of generosity the right to complain. Her faith might have perished, but the sense of her own old deep perversity remained. He believed her thus quite capable of reproaching herself with having expected too much and of trying to persuade herself out of her bitterness by saying that her hopes had been vanities and follies and that what was before her was simply Life. "I hate tragedy," she once said to him; "I'm a dreadful coward about having to suffer or to bleed. I've ...
— Madame de Mauves • Henry James

... he looked round despondently, and thought of his brother's words, which, broken and incoherent as they were, told of the disappointment and bitterness which had followed the long, ...
— Diamond Dyke - The Lone Farm on the Veldt - Story of South African Adventure • George Manville Fenn

... with a five hundred dollars' increase in his salary the second year, he was nearly a thousand dollars in debt, and losing steadily each quarter. Something must be done—and by him!—for in marriage, he perceived with a certain bitterness, Man was the Forager, the Provider. And in America if he didn't bring in enough from the day's hunt to satisfy the charming squaw that he had made his consort, why,—he must trudge forth again and get it! A poor hunter does not deserve the embellishment ...
— Together • Robert Herrick (1868-1938)

... to stir or speak. It may be that the girl slept fitfully, worn out by long vigil and intense strain; but the man proved less fortunate, his eyes staring out continually into the black void, his thoughts upon other days long vanished but now brought back in all their bitterness by the mere proximity of this helpless waif who had fallen into his care. His features were drawn and haggard when the first gray dawn found ghastly reflection along the opposite rock summit, and with blurred eyes he watched the faint tinge ...
— Bob Hampton of Placer • Randall Parrish

... to submit to the inward grief of having been beaten. The youth who is second, who has thus shown himself to be possessed of a mass of erudition sufficient to crush an ordinary mind to the earth, is ready to eat his heart with true bitterness of spirit. After all his labour, his midnight oil, his many sleepless nights, his deserted pleasures, his racking headaches, Amaryllis abandoned, and Neaera seen in the arms of another—! After all this, to be beaten by Jones! Had it been Green or ...
— The Bertrams • Anthony Trollope

... very affection was his greatest torment: it was for our sakes he had so ardently longed to increase his fortune—it was our interest that had lent such brightness to his hopes, and that imparted such bitterness to his present distress. He now tormented himself with remorse at having neglected my mother's advice; which would at least have saved him from the additional burden of debt—he vainly reproached himself for having brought her from the dignity, the ease, the luxury ...
— Agnes Grey • Anne Bronte

... his affection, in the hours when he was not in public. Never, since he entered the world, had he become really familiar with any one but her; it has been seen elsewhere to what extent. Nothing could fill up this great void: The bitterness of being deprived of her augmented, because he could find no diversion. This unfortunate state made him seek relief everywhere in abandoning himself more and more to Madame de Maintenon and M. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... renewed in the spirit of your mind. Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour. Let him that stole steal no more, let no corrupt conversation proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying. Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice. And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving ...
— The Village Pulpit, Volume II. Trinity to Advent • S. Baring-Gould

... to reply, but there was something in Bella's voice that disarmed Millicent's resentment. Bella had grown gentler since her marriage and less often indulged in bitterness. ...
— The Long Portage • Harold Bindloss

... awoke in the morning and looked upon the wretchedness about him, his dream had had its usual effect—it had intensified the sordidness of his surroundings a thousandfold. Then came bitterness, and heart-break, and tears. ...
— Innocents abroad • Mark Twain

... race whose skin happened to be red, but they did object to mingling on the same terms with members of another backward race whose skin happened to be black. It apparently never entered his head to regard this discrimination with bitterness or as a personal rebuff. One could not, however, make a greater mistake than to assume from this impersonal attitude that he condoned race prejudice, or in any sense stood as an apologist for it. To dispel any such idea one has only to recall his speech at the Peace Jubilee in Chicago after ...
— Booker T. Washington - Builder of a Civilization • Emmett J. Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe

... look now you should chide me, and 'tis fit, And with much bitterness express your anger, I have deserv'd: ...
— The Little French Lawyer - A Comedy • Francis Beaumont

... upon whose throne thou sittest—and full twenty thousand with them—and they have sworn by a great oath, Lord, to slay thee, ere this year be done; and even now they march towards thee as the north wind of winter for bitterness and haste." ...
— The Legends Of King Arthur And His Knights • James Knowles

... history; for years had passed since she had left the grave of her mother, and her native home, on "New England's rocky shore," to wander forth with her father to the western wilds. "Little did they know of the bitterness of soul I felt while ...
— Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXXII No. 4, April 1848 • Various

... future of the college was a subject in which he could always become absorbed, and it was one sufficiently identified with the best interests of the country to secure the attention of his listener. In this land, where no church is established, there is so little bitterness existing between different religious bodies, that the fact that the college was under Episcopal management made no difference to the Presbyterian's goodwill towards it. He sent his own boys to school there, admired Trenholme's enthusiastic devotion to his work, and ...
— What Necessity Knows • Lily Dougall

... happened at all?' cried Cecil, in the tone of despairing bitterness. 'Did I deserve it? Haven't I behaved better, more kindly, than most men would have done? Isn't it just because I was too good-natured that ...
— The Whirlpool • George Gissing

... the usual fate of traitors, he was badly rewarded; and when he complained of his treatment, he was called a traitor by the very men who had gained by his treachery, and he poisoned himself in the bitterness of his grief. Antiochus, like most invaders, carried off whatever treasure fell into his hands. Egypt was a sponge which had not lately been squeezed, and his court and even his own dinner-table then shone with a blaze of silver ...
— History Of Egypt From 330 B.C. To The Present Time, Volume 10 (of 12) • S. Rappoport

... or that social home life which goes to make up a woman's world, and longing for the safety of close sympathy and tender love, with no one on whom her intellect could strike a spark, she keenly felt the bitterness ...
— Little Journeys To the Homes of the Great, Volume 3 (of 14) • Elbert Hubbard

... he would do for himself—is inadmissible. How many things there are that we do for our friends which we should never do on our own account!—such as making a request even an entreaty, of a man unworthy of respect or inveighing against some person with a degree of bitterness, nay, in terms of vehement reproach. In fine, we are perfectly right in doing in behalf of a friend things that in our own case would be decidedly unbecoming. There are also many ways in which good men detract largely from their own comfort or suffer it to be impaired, that a friend ...
— De Amicitia, Scipio's Dream • Marcus Tullius Ciceronis

... Christianity, and regarded the renegades with mistrust and abhorrence. These for the moment were benefited greatly by their apostasy, receiving permission to retain not only their own estates, but also to hold in fief those belonging to such as had refused to deny Christ. With the bitterness characteristic of renegades, they now became the most inveterate enemies of those whose faith they had abjured, oppressing them by every means within their power. The savage tyranny which they exercised would doubtless ...
— Herzegovina - Or, Omer Pacha and the Christian Rebels • George Arbuthnot

... goodliesome herbes of sentences by pruning: eate them by reading: chawe them by musing: and laie them up at length in the hie seate of memorie by gathering them together: that so having tasted their sweetenes I may the lesse perceave the bitterness of this miserable life." The covering is done in needle work by the Queen [then princess] herself, and thereon are these sentences, viz. on one side, on the borders; CELVM PATRIA: SCOPVS VITAE XPVS. CHRISTVS VIA. CHRISTO VIVE. In the middle a ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin

... Church. Nor are they much affected, if the glory of God happens to be violated with open blasphemies, provided no one lift a finger against the primacy of the Apostolic See, and the authority of their holy Mother Church. Why, therefore, do they contend with such extreme bitterness and cruelty for the mass, purgatory, pilgrimages, and similar trifles, and deny that any piety can be maintained without a most explicit faith, so to speak, in these things; whereas they prove none of them from the word of God? Why, but because their ...
— Prefaces and Prologues to Famous Books - with Introductions, Notes and Illustrations • Charles W. Eliot

... literary reputation, and turn away the eyes of a public as fickle as herself from our pages. Surely that were hard enough! Can Fortune pluck a more galling dart from her quiver, and dip the point in more envenomed bitterness? Yes, those whose hard lot is here recorded have suffered more terrible wounds than these. They have lost liberty, and even life, on account of their works. The cherished offspring of their brains have, like unnatural children, turned against ...
— Books Fatal to Their Authors • P. H. Ditchfield

... would be almost impossible to lead any body of them to a distance from their own fields. He foresaw also all the horrors into which they were about to plunge; horrors, of which an honourable death on the field of battle would be the least. The Republic had already shown the bitterness of their malice towards those who opposed them, and de Lescure knew what mercy it would shew to those of his party who ...
— La Vendee • Anthony Trollope

... form, voice after voice, yet not one familiar countenance, not one remembered tone, not the glance of a kindly eye; all is new, all is strange, all at seeming enmity. The defection of Jerome, my only comrade, was indeed a cup of bitterness. I dreaded to meet him, not knowing what tack he might cut away on. Yet I could not blame him; it was more ...
— The Black Wolf's Breed - A Story of France in the Old World and the New, happening - in the Reign of Louis XIV • Harris Dickson

... left some amusing reminiscences in his Autobiography. Heine's view of the situation was speedily justified. Not by any efforts could Rienzi be unloaded upon an opera director, and Wagner began to experience the bitterness of poverty. To earn a bare living, he thought himself lucky to be entrusted with the making of transcriptions of popular airs and the writing of articles for ...
— Wagner • John F. Runciman

... are Carolina and A Cry to Arms, which in the exciting days of '61 deeply moved the Southern heart, but which today serve as melancholy mementos of a long-past sectional bitterness. Of the vigorous lines of the former, Hayne says in an interesting autobiographic touch, "I read them first, and was thrilled by their power and pathos, upon a stormy March evening in Fort Sumter! Walking along the battlements, under the red lights of ...
— Poets of the South • F.V.N. Painter



Words linked to "Bitterness" :   taste sensation, acridity, gall, gustatory sensation, taste perception, disagreeableness, acridness, gustatory perception, ill will, taste property, grievance, score, tartness, huffishness, envy, enviousness, taste, heartburning, hostility, enmity, sulkiness, acrimony, thorniness, grudge



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