Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.
Evils have their comfort, good none can support.
Love isn't soft, like the poets say. Love has teeth which bite and the wounds never close.
Pervading all nature we may see at work a stern discipline , which is a little cruel that it may be very kind.
I still love the people I’ve loved, even if I cross the street to avoid them.
What was hard to suffer is sweet to remember.
Life for me has been exactly what I thought it would be, a cake, which I have eaten and had too.
Is a lifetime long enough to hold the regret that I have for that fantastically aborted but crazily sweet love affair?
It's in despair that you find the sharpest pleasures, particularly when you are most acutely aware of the hopelessness of your position.
From the very fountain of enchantment there arises a taste of bitterness to spread anguish amongst the flowers.
It brewed in her as she eyed the pages full to the brims of their bellies with paragraphs and words. You bastards, she thought. You lovely bastards. Don’t make me happy. Please, don’t fill me up and let me think that something good can come of any of this.
There are sorrows that are not painful, but are of the nature of some acids, and give piquancy and flavor to life.
Earth is embittered to us, that heaven may be endeared.
Still from the fount of joy's delicious springs Some bitter o'er the flowers its bubbling venom flings.
Preserve me from such cordiality! It is like handling briar-roses and may-blossoms - bright enough to the eye, and outwardly soft to the touch, but you know there are thorns beneath, and every now and then you feel them too; and perhaps resent the injury by crushing them in till you have destroyed their power, though somewhat to the detriment of your own fingers.
Things that were hard to bear are sweet to remember.
I like this life. I like it when it's hard, and I like it better when it's not, but I know you don't get the sweet part without the bitter.
Life is a mixed blessing, which we vainly try to unmix.
Anger, which, far sweeter than trickling drops of honey, rises in the bosom of a man like smoke.
Sometimes the memory of happiness cannot stay true because it ended unhappily.
The remembrance of past misery is sweet.
Bad things will happen and good things too. Your life will be full of surprises. Miracles happen only where there has been suffering. So taste your grief to the fullest. Don’t try and press it down. Don’t hide from it. Don’t escape. It is life too. It is truth. But it will pass and time will put a strange honey in the bitterness. That’s the way life goes.
Salt. Wound. Together at last.
A heat full of coldness, a sweet full of bitterness, a pain full of pleasantness, which maketh thoughts have eyes and hearts ears, bred by desire, nursed by delight, weaned by jealousy, kill'd by dissembling, buried by ingratitude, and this is love.
A kiss is but a kiss now! and no wave of a great flood that whirls me to the sea. But, as you will! we'll sit contentedly, and eat our pot of honey on the grave.
