Bittersweet Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old bittersweet quotes, bittersweet sayings, and bittersweet proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope. Anne Carson
You are the illness I will never cure. You are the poem I will never write. You are the thought I will never finish. You are the text I will never read. Maria Elena
Waiting is painful. Forgetting is painful. But not knowing which to do is the worst kind of suffering. Paulo Coelho
We are nothing but shadows. Fading away trying to hold on to this bittersweet life that we call our own. Ricky Mears
So it really does have a sort of bittersweet quality. Kids like to have adventures and to believe they can fly, but there's also that fear about people leaving you. Cathy Rigby
Once again love drives me on, that loosener of limbs, bittersweet creature against which nothing can be done. Sappho
We are afraid to care too much, for fear that the other person does not care at all. Eleanor Roosevelt
We weren't that different after all, our souls laden with the same ache of loss, our hearts bursting with the same longing to save what remained of all we loved. Rachel L. Schade
This is a good sign, having a broken heart. It means we have tried for something. Elizabeth Gilbert
You cannot drink the nectar of love without bleeding for its thorns. Amit Howard
Love comes unseen; we only see it go. Austin Dobson
Life is bittersweet. Inside our heads, if we're lucky, we're the same kids as we were when we were young. Hugh Hefner
When things fall apart, the broken pieces allow all sorts of things to enter, and one of them is the presence of God. Shauna Niequist
Sometimes the happiest ending isn't the one you keep longing for, but something you absolutely cannot see from where you are. Shauna Niequist
The life, when we're aware of beauty, is kind of a bittersweet thing, it's a transient reminder of eternal beauty, which someday we will be face to face with. Jon Foreman
People are lonely because they build walls instead of bridges. Joseph F. Newton Men
Sometimes it takes a heartbreak to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we're settling for. Mandy Hale
We thought humble and proud at the same time, all at once in love again with this painful bittersweet lovely thing called flight. Richard Bach
There's always a bittersweet kind of thing, but I feel like everything had to work out the way it is. Everything that had to happen, happened. Bruno Mars
It's kind of bittersweet. The human spirit is not measured by the size of the act, but by the size of the heart. Yakov Smirnoff
If you begin to face your fears, something bittersweet is going to happen to you: You'll grow up. Martha Beck
With his venom irresistible and bittersweet that loosener of limbs, Love reptile-like strikes me down. Sappho
You don't love someone because they're perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they're not. Jodi Picoult
We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others. Michel de Montaigne
Memories, even bittersweet ones, are better than nothing. Jennifer Armentrout
In life, there are those relationships where you really love someone, but they're just not right for you and there's a little bittersweet feel to it. Jennifer Morrison
A guy and a girl can be just friends, but at one point or another, they will fall for each other. Maybe temporarily, maybe at the wrong time, maybe too late, or maybe forever. Dave Matthews Band
Truth is, everybody is going to hurt you; you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for. Bob Marley
And you find some way to survive. And you find out you don't have to be happy at all. To be happy you're alive. Brian Yorkey
Some of the most life-shaping decisions you make in this season will be about walking away from good-enough, in search of can't-live-without. Shauna Niequist
People are not rain or snow or autumn leaves; they do not look beautiful when they fall. Naveed A. Khan
Sometimes, in a relationship, we fail to put two and two together because we want so much to keep one and one together. Robert Brault
When life is sweet, say thank you and celebrate. And when life is bitter, say thank you and grow. Shauna Niequist
The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Nicholas Sparks
To me, the human experience does involve a great deal of anguish. It's joyful, but it's bittersweet. I just think that's life. Amy Grant
The most painful thing is losing yourself in the process of loving someone too much, and forgetting that you are special too. Ernest Hemingway
It is strange how often a heart must be broken before the years can make it wise. Sara Teasdale
Our sweetest songs are those of saddest thought. Percy Bysshe Shelley
I finally understood what true love meant. Love meant that you care for another person's happiness more than your own, no matter how painful the choices you face might be. Nicholas Sparks
One of the hardest things in life is having words in your heart that you can't utter. James Earl Jones
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. Those who wish to sing always find a song. At the touch of a lover, everyone becomes a poet. Plato
There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness. Friedrich Nietzsche
Life at best is bittersweet. Jack Kirby
The heart is the only broken instrument that works. T. E. Kalem
Life is bittersweet, when we can let darkness and light co-exist as illumination, we can live in true happiness. When we live life at its best, it is a symphony of feelings, of high and low notes, of tragedy and comedy, love and loss, magic and the sublime. It can be quite a spectacular journey when we fully embrace and accept it. Jaeda Dewalt
And no hand can gather up the fallen withered petals of the rose of youth. Oscar Wilde
Rudderless, we drift athwart a tempest, and when once the storm of youth is past, / Without lyre, without lute or chorus, / Death the silent pilot comes at last. Oscar Wilde
How unbearable, for women, is a tenderness which a man can give them without love. For men, how bittersweet this is. Albert Camus
It takes forty muscles to frown, and only twelve to jam a cupcake in your mouth and get over it. Sarah Ockler
I shall stay all day in the sun / Where the wide winds blow, -- / But oh, I shall cry at night / When none will know. Sara Teasdale
So even though I left you / Can't forget you / Oh when I think about you / It's bittersweet, it's bittersweet. Stevie Scott
At times / Part of me wants you, part of me don't / Part of me is missing you, part of me is gone / Part of me is saying that the love is still strong, / Part of me is letting go. Stevie Scott
The vines were beautiful, twining up through the split-rail fence and onto some nearby saplings, climbing and twisting up to the top of the branches. They produced beautiful golden leaves and brilliant orange berries in the fall, as they slowly choked the life out of the host plant. Linda Cushman
Even death is bittersweet when one has faith in eternal life in Christ. Isabella Patton
Poverty makes you sad as well as wise. Bertholt Brecht
Remember me when I am gone away, / Gone far away into the silent land. / Better by far you should forget and smile / Than you should remember and be sad. Christina Rossetti
Love has unbound my limbs and set me shaking, / A monster bittersweet and my unmaking. Sappho
Love— bittersweet, irrepressible, / Loosens my limbs and I tremble. Sappho
That which was bitter to endure may be sweet to remember. Thomas Fuller
The roots of education are bitter but the fruit is sweet. Aristotle
When you are full you will refuse honey, but when you are hungry, even bitter food tastes sweet. Proverbs 27:7
...the remembrance even of joy having its bitterness, and the memories of pleasure their pain. Oscar Wilde
Each kiss was nearer to the last one of all. Philip Pullman
I told you I loved you, but I said it a little too late. You move in time and sometimes our timing is against one another. Dominic Riccitello
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened. Dr. Seuss
Mother's Day is a bittersweet day for many of us. We all have mothers, but some of us have lost them. Faith Salie
Sentimental outbreaks are like liquorice; when first you suck it, it's not bad, but afterwards it leaves a very nasty taste in the mouth. Ivan Turgenev
What I used to be will pass away and then you'll see / That all I want now is happiness for you and me. Elliott Smith
my own chocolate center has filled up with poison, / the roses he gave me all twisted black Terra Elan McVoy
That she was irreplaceable became a bittersweet loyalty: Her death was what I had now instead of her. Gail Caldwell
Birth is a bittersweet event ... a place where heaven and earth collide in a perplexing clash of hopes, dreams, facts, fears, questions, and expectations. Debra Evans
We feel a kind of bittersweet pricking of malicious delight in contemplating the misfortunes of others. Michel de Montaigne
To be running breathlessly, but not yet arrived, is itself delightful, a suspended moment of living hope. Anne Carson
You can measure the happiness of a marriage by the number of scars that each partner carries on their tongues, earned from years of biting back angry words. Elizabeth Gilbert