Frank J. Wilstach, comp. A Dictionary of Similes. 1916.
Bitter
Bitter as the suffering of life.
—Anonymous
Bitter as gall.
—Anonymous
Bitter as chestnut husks.
—Honoré de Balzac
Bitter as self-sacrifice.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning
Bitter, like a day of mourning.
—Joseph Conrad
More bitter than the sea.
—Joseph Conrad
Bitter as a nausea.
—Gabriel D’Annunzio
Their earthly days were bitter, like the oil-tree.
—Thomas De Quincey
Love bitter as Despair.
—Lord De Tabley
Bitter as Penthea’s curse.
—John Ford
Bitter as truth.
—Victor Hugo
Bitter in the mouth as a page torn out of Ecclesiastes.
—James Huneker
Bitter as home-brewed ale.
—Henry W. Longfellow
Bitter as hemlock.
—Fitz-James O’Brien
Bitter as coloquintida.
—William Shakespeare
Bitter to me as death.
—William Shakespeare
Bitter as fell.
—Edmund Spenser
Bitter as a tear.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Bitter as harsh-lipped spring.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Bitter as the breaking down of love.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Thy speech is bitterer than the sea.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Bitter like blood.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
Her heart within
Burnt bitter like an aftertaste of sin
To one whose memory drinks and loathes the lee
Of shame or sorrow deeper than the sea.
—Algernon Charles Swinburne
And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands.
—Old Testament
Bitter as wormwood.
—Old Testament
Bitterer than Sardinian herbage.
—Virgil