Sorrow Quotes

Most popular sorrow quotes

The deeper the sorrow, the less tongue it has.
— Talmud
Grief is not in the nature of things, but an opinion. - Cicero quote.
Grief is not in the nature of things, but an opinion.
You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair.
— Chinese proverb

Chinese proverbs Persian proverbs proverbs

Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. - Blaise Pascal quote.
Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons.
Sorrows remembered sweeten present joy.
Shared joy is a double joy; shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
— Swedish proverb

Swedish proverbs suffering proverbs joy European proverbs

Shared joy is double joy and shared sorrow is half-sorrow.
— Swedish proverb

happiness Swedish proverbs proverbs joy

Life would not be life if a sorrow were sad, and a joy merry, from beginning to end.

joy life

Night is the blotting paper for many sorrows.

sleep

Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form. - Rumi quote.
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain. - Kahlil Gibran quote.
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being, the more joy you can contain.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
If we could read the secret history of our enemies, we should find in each man's life sorrow and suffering enough to disarm all hostility.

enemies suffering

For certain is death for the born. And certain is birth for the dead. 
Therefore over the inevitable thou shouldst not grieve.
— Bhagavad Gita

death

Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water. - Christopher Morley quote.
Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.
Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for transplanting. - Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. quote.
Easy-crying widows take new husbands soonest; there is nothing like wet weather for transplanting.
If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself. - Horace quote.
If you would have me weep, you must first of all feel grief yourself.
Quiet and sincere sympathy is often the most welcome and efficient consolation to the afflicted. Said a wise man to one in deep sorrow, 'I did not come to comfort you; God only can do that, but I did come to say how deeply and tenderly I feel for you in your affliction'. - Tyron Edwards quote.
Quiet and sincere sympathy is often the most welcome and efficient consolation to the afflicted. Said a wise man to one in deep sorrow, 'I did not come to comfort you; God only can do that, but I did come to say how deeply and tenderly I feel for you in your affliction'.
I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies, for the world needs such men more than heaven does. - G. C. Lichtenberg quote.
I am always grieved when a man of real talent dies, for the world needs such men more than heaven does.
Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell. - Joni Mitchell quote.
Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell.
Grief is so selfish.
Grief and greed are as inextricably entwined as love and marriage should be.

greed

There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail. - Logan Pearsall Smith quote.
There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.
Grief is itself a medicine. - William Cowper quote.
Grief is itself a medicine.
A word to those of you who are trying to drown your sorrow. Please be aware that sorrow knows how to swim. - Ann Landers quote.
A word to those of you who are trying to drown your sorrow. Please be aware that sorrow knows how to swim.

drinking alcohol

Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life. - Benjamin Disraeli quote.
Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of Grief the blunder of a life.

blunders

The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.

commitment

Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief.
and not seek for kind relief? - William Blake quote.
Can I see another's woe,
And not be in sorrow too?
Can I see another's grief.
and not seek for kind relief?

compassion

Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart. - John Adams quote.
Grief drives men into habits of serious reflection, sharpens the understanding and softens the heart.
I have always fought for ideas—unti I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten. - Margaret Anderson quote.
I have always fought for ideas—unti I learned that it isn't ideas but grief, struggle, and flashes of vision which enlighten.
Grief is no more necessary when we understand death than fear is necessary when we understand flying. - Richard Bach quote.
Grief is no more necessary when we understand death than fear is necessary when we understand flying.
For there is no aristocracy in grief, no privilege of purple in the aches of the heart, and though certain blood may plume itself on its blueness, common salt is the scalding quality of all tears.
The finer the nature, and the higher the level at which it seeks to live, the lower in grief it not only sinks but dives. - Elizabeth Bowen quote.
The finer the nature, and the higher the level at which it seeks to live, the lower in grief it not only sinks but dives.
When we grieve, tears and guilt get mixed together. - Art Buchwald quote.
When we grieve, tears and guilt get mixed together.

tears

Since every death diminishes us a little, we grieve—not so much for the death as for ourselves.
The only education in grief that any of us ever gets is a crash course.
Gail Caldwell Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship
Grief doesn't necessarily make you noble.  Sometimes it just makes you crazy, or primitive with fear.
Grief is itself a med'cine. - William Cowper quote.
Grief is itself a med'cine.
Grief is the price Love pays for being in the same world with Death. - Margaret Deland quote.
Grief is the price Love pays for being in the same world with Death.
I measure every Grief I meet
With narrow, probing, eyes—
I wonder if It weighs like Mine—
Or has an Easier size.
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 quote.
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.
Man sheds grief as his skin sheds rain. - Ralph Waldo Emerson quote.
Man sheds grief as his skin sheds rain.
Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence. - Lady Blessington quote.
Grief is, of all the passions, the one that is the most ingenious and indefatigable in finding food for its own subsistence.
I feel like grief is an illness I can't recover from. - Sue Grafton quote.
I feel like grief is an illness I can't recover from.
In all the silent manliness of grief. - Oliver Goldsmith quote.
In all the silent manliness of grief.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert it only irritates.  You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. - Samuel Johnson quote.
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert it only irritates.  You must wait till grief be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. - C. S. Lewis quote.
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.  Every other wound, we seek to heal—every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open—this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude. - Washington Irving quote.
The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced.  Every other wound, we seek to heal—every other affliction to forget; but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open—this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.
Grief can't be shared.  Everyone carries it alone, his own burden, his own way. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote.
Grief can't be shared.  Everyone carries it alone, his own burden, his own way.
There is no aristocracy of grief.  Grief is a great leveler. - Anne Morrow Lindbergh quote.
There is no aristocracy of grief.  Grief is a great leveler.
Oh, well it has been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
Oh, well it has been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak.
Grief is the price we pay for Love.
Grief is a circular staircase.
Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. - Marcel Proust quote.
Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind.
Grief can sometimes only be expressed in platitudes. We are original in our happy moments. Sorrow has only one voice, one cry.
The light has gone out of my life. - Theodore Roosevelt quote.
The light has gone out of my life.
Grief. The state of mind brought about when love, having lost to death, learns to breathe beside it. - Roger Rosenblatt quote.
Grief. The state of mind brought about when love, having lost to death, learns to breathe beside it.
Roger Rosenblatt Kayak Morning: Reflections on Love, Grief, and Small Boats
There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie. - May Sarton quote.
There are some griefs so loud
They could bring down the sky,
And there are griefs so still
None knows how deep they lie.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief.  When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly. - Seneca quote.
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief.  When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly.
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief. - William Shakespeare quote.
Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it. - William Shakespeare quote.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.
Grief makes one hour ten. - William Shakespeare quote.
Grief makes one hour ten.
Patch grief with proverbs. - William Shakespeare quote.
Patch grief with proverbs.

proverbs

Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living. - William Shakespeare quote.
Moderate lamentation is the right of the dead; excessive grief the enemy to the living.
Day doth daily draw my sorrow's longer,
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem longer. - William Shakespeare quote.
Day doth daily draw my sorrow's longer,
And night doth nightly make grief's length seem longer.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson quote.
I sometimes hold it half a sin
To put in words the grief I feel;
For words, like Nature, half reveal
And half conceal the Soul within.
That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight. - Josephine Tey quote.
That was the way with grief: it left you alone for months together until you thought that you were cured, and then without warning it blotted out the sunlight.
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it. - Amelia E. Barr quote.
It is only in sorrow bad weather masters us; in joy we face the storm and defy it.

suffering joy

Excess of sorrow laughs.  Excess of joy weeps.

suffering joy

A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. - Oscar Wilde quote.
A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure.

self-control

There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow. - Cicero quote.
There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow.
Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past.  And it is not a course to be wished for them. - Ivy Compton-Burnett quote.
Many people misjudge the permanent effect of sorrow, and their capacity to live in the past.  And it is not a course to be wished for them.
It is not always sorrow that opens the fountains of the eyes. - Madame de Sevigne quote.
It is not always sorrow that opens the fountains of the eyes.
Madame de Sevigne Letters of Madame de Sévigné to her Daughter and Her Friends

tears

All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them. - Isak Dinesen quote.
All sorrows can be borne if you put them into a story or tell a story about them.

stories

Sorrow has its reward.  It never leaves us where it found us. - Mary Baker Eddy quote.
Sorrow has its reward.  It never leaves us where it found us.
No one can ever state the exact measure of his needs, nor his ideas nor his sorrows. - Gustave Flaubert quote.
No one can ever state the exact measure of his needs, nor his ideas nor his sorrows.
I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands. - Zora Neale Hurston quote.
I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands.
Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see. - Henry James quote.
Sorrow comes in great waves—no one can know that better than you—but it rolls over us, and though it may almost smother us it leaves us on the spot, and we know that if it is strong we are stronger, inasmuch as it passes and we remain. It wears us, uses us, but we wear it and use it in return; and it is blind, whereas we after a manner see.
Nothing lasts.  Not even a great sorrow.
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it. - Abraham Lincoln quote.
In this sad world of ours, sorrow comes to all; and, to the young, it comes with bitterest agony, because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to ever expect it.
Believe me, every heart has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
Believe me, every heart has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad.
Take this sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
Take this sorrow to thy heart, and make it a part of thee, and it shall nourish thee till thou art strong again.
The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness—the taste and stain from the lees of the vat. - Henry Wadsworth Longfellow quote.
The first pressure of sorrow crushes out from our hearts the best wine; afterwards the constant weight of it brings forth bitterness—the taste and stain from the lees of the vat.
The sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks and no boundaries; sorrow's horizons are vague and its demands are few.
Two in distress make sorrow less.

proverbs

Great sorrows are silent.
— Italian proverb

Italian proverbs European proverbs proverbs

Good night.  Good night.  Parting is such sweet sorrow. - William Shakespeare quote.
Good night.  Good night.  Parting is such sweet sorrow.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions. - William Shakespeare quote.
When sorrows come, they come not single spies,
But in battalions.
A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times. - Alfred, Lord Tennyson quote.
A sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground. - Oscar Wilde quote.
Where there is sorrow there is holy ground.
Consider how much more you often suffer from your anger and grief, than from those very things for which you are angry and grieved.

anger attitude

When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 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 quote.
When you are joyous, look deep into your heart and you shall find it is only that which has given you sorrow that is giving you joy. 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.

joy

Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It is not the truncation of the process, but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure. - C. S. Lewis quote.
Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love. It is not the truncation of the process, but one of its phases; not the interruption of the dance, but the next figure.
Grief is what we add on to loss. It is a learned response, specific to some cultures only. It is not universal and it is not unavoidable. ... Grief is seeing only what has been taken away from you. The celebration of a life is recognizing all that we were blessed with, and feeling so very grateful.