"those who have not tasted the bitterest of life's bitters, can never appreciate the sweetest of life's sweet"

Question:what does this phrase means to you... give real-life situations of this.

Answers:
Your quote: "those who have not tasted the bitterest of life's bitters, can never appreciate the sweetest of life's sweet".

What it means is that nothing is what it is without its contrast. We cannot appreciate joy in our lives without a measure of sadness. E.g. sometimes it takes losing people close to you for many people to truly appreciate life and not take it for granted. Paris Hilton is a spoiled rich kid, but throw her in the slammer and she now has a newfound appreciation for life. Pain gives pleasure its meaning.

Truly to enjoy bodily warmth, some small part of you must be cold . . . For there is no quality in this world that is not what it is merely by contrast. Nothing exists in itself. If you flatter yourself that you are all over comfortable, and have been so a long time, then you cannot be said to be comfortable anymore.
— Herman Melville (Moby Dick, p. 86)

Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word "happiness" could lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
— Carl Jung

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
— Anne Bradstreet

We could never learn to be brave and patient, if there were only joy in the world.
— Helen Keller

Sour, sweet, bitter, pungent, all must be tasted.
— Chinese proverb
I think it means you can't KNOW if you've never been.

Spoiled Rich (paris hilton) kids for example.

They've never really known what it is to NOT HAVE. So they squander and completely take for granted every THING and PERSON around them.
it means like if u havent been through tough times you cant appreciate the good stuff that happens to you. another one i like goes something like "if it never rained, youd never get to see a rainbow"
Have you ever seen The Pursuit of Happiness? Now put the main character of that movie against one of the teenagers on MTV's Sweet 16. They both have money, but their perception of what they have are completely different. One appreciates it while the other has no idea of what they've got. And if its one thing that I wouldn't want to be, its somebody that doesn't know the value of what they have.
I don't agree with this statement. It's a persistent holdover from the aesthetic philosophy of the 19th century (the Romantic Ideal). It wasn't true then and it isn't true now.

My ability to appreciate the joy of true love, for example, or the awe and wonder of a spectacular sunset, is not conditioned by how much I've suffered in the past. These are experiences that stand on their own in the present with no reference to the past.
I most definitely agree with this quote, unlike what Steve D says, because if we'd have a view of beautiful sunsets every single day we'd soon lose our appreciation of it. But that's going a bit off topic, cause whoever made this quote wasn't necessarily referring to sunsets, but to good times in life, when things go our way. If things would constantly go our way, we wouldn't appreciate it half as much. Like when we're sick, and then get better, we suddenly appreciate the fact that we're healthy, because we've tasted the bitter. This can go with having money too, and so on.

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