Quotations About Grief

Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland


When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran


It's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses. ~Colette


Sorrow you can hold, however desolating, if nobody speaks to you. If they speak, you break down. ~Bede Jarrett


While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. ~Samuel Johnson


Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. ~William Shakespeare


Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exists. ~Antonio Porchia, Voces, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin


Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. ~Ralph Waldo Emerson


No one can keep his griefs in their prime; they use themselves up. ~E.M. Cioran


Grief is a species of idleness. ~Samuel Johnson


Grief is itself a medicine. ~William Cowper, Charity


In my Lucia's absence
Life hangs upon me, and becomes a burden;
I am ten times undone, while hope, and fear,
And grief, and rage and love rise up at once,
And with variety of pain distract me.
~Joseph Addison


Time is a physician that heals every grief. ~Diphilus


The deep pain that is felt at the death of every friendly soul arises from the feeling that there is in every individual something which is inexpressible, peculiar to him alone, and is, therefore, absolutely and irretrievably lost. ~Arthur Schopenhauer


There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out. ~Lou Reed, "Magic and Loss"



If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble. ~Moliere



The sorrow which has no vent in tears may make other organs weep. ~Henry Maudsley



She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. ~George Eliot


While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~John Taylor