In all the silent manliness of grief.
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730–74) Irish Novelist, Playwright, Poet
One often calms one’s grief by recounting it.
—Pierre Corneille (1606–84) French Poet, Dramatist
Patch grief with proverbs.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Why is it that we rejoice at a birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
What right have I to grieve, who have not ceased to wonder?
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead, that all of thee we loved and cherished has with thy summer roses perished; and left, as its young beauty fled, an ashen memory in its stead.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
When we suffer anguish we return to early childhood because that is the period in which we first learnt to suffer the experience of total loss. It was more than that. It was the period in which we suffered more total losses than in all the rest of our life put together.
—John Berger (1926–2017) English Art Critic, Novelist
Time takes away the grief of men.
—Desiderius Erasmus (c.1469–1536) Dutch Humanist, Scholar
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 the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
No matter how deep and dark your pit, how dank your shroud, their heads are heroically unbloody and unbowed.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
Tell me, how can I live without my Husband any longer? This is my first awakening thought each morning, and as I watch the waves of the turbulent lake under our windows I sometimes feel I should like to go under them.
—Mary Todd Lincoln (1818–82) American First lady
For precious friends hid in death’s dateless night.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Mourning is not forgetting… It is an undoing. Every minute tie has to be untied and something permanent and valuable recovered and assimilated from the dust. The end is gain, of course. Blessed are they that mourn, for theyshall be made strong, in fact. But the process is like all other human births, painful and long and dangerous.
—Margery Allingham (1904–66) English Detective-story Writer
Don’t order any black things. Rejoice in his memory; and be radiant: leave grief to the children. Wear violet and purple. Be patient with the poor people who will snivel: they don’t know; and they think they will live forever, which makes death a division instead of a bond.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
Grief is light that is capable of counsel.
—Common Proverb
Peace, peace! he is not dead, he doth not sleep—he hath awakened from the dream of life—‘Tis we, who lost in stormy visions, keep with phantoms an unprofitable strife.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless; That only men incredulous of despair, half-taught in anguish, through the midnight air beat upward to god’s throne in loud access of shrieking and reproach
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.
—William S. Burroughs (1914–97) American Novelist, Poet, Short Story Writer, Painter
All things grow with time—except grief.
—Yiddish Proverb
There is immunity in reading, immunity in formal society, in office routine, in the company of old friends and in the giving of officious help to strangers, but there is no sanctuary in one bed from the memory of another. The past with its anguish will break through every defense-line of custom and habit; we must sleep and therefore we must dream.
—Cyril Connolly (1903–74) British Literary Critic, Writer
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 (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
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 (1709–84) British Essayist
The only cure for grief is action.
—George Henry Lewes (1817–78) English Philosopher, Literary Critic, Art Critic
There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Who originated that most exquisite of inquisitions, the condolence system?
—Elizabeth Stuart Phelps Ward
Time heals old pain, while it creates new ones.
—Hebrew Proverb
Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past.
—Walker Percy (1916–90) American Novelist
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, I am better now. Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.
—Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–99) American Lawyer, Orator, Agnostic
Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone. His own burden in his own way.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
Grief that is dazed and speechless is out of fashion: the modern woman mourns her husband loudly and tells you the whole story of his death, which distresses her so much that she forgets not the slightest detail about it.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Bereavement is a darkness impenetrable to the imagination of the unbereaved.
—Iris Murdoch (1919–99) British Novelist, Playwright, Philosopher
Grief is the agony of an instant; the indulgence of grief the blunder of a life.
—Benjamin Franklin (1706–90) American Political Leader, Inventor, Diplomat
There’s no use in weeping,
Though we are condemned to part:
There’s such a thing as keeping
A remembrance in one’s heart…
—Charlotte Bronte (1816–1855) English Novelist, Poet
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 (Mary Anne Evans) (1819–80) English Novelist
But there are other things than dissipation that thicken the features. Tears, for example.
—Rebecca West (1892–1983) English Author, Journalist, Literary Critic
Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.
—The Holy Bible Scripture in the Christian Faith
Sorrow is the great idealizer.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
If, as I can’t help suspecting, the dead also feel the pains of separation (and this may be one of their purgatorial sufferings), then for both lovers, and for all pairs of lovers without exception, bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
We feel at first as if some opportunities of kindness and sympathy were lost, but learn afterward that any pure grief is ample recompense for all. That is, if we are faithful;—for a spent grief is but sympathy with the soul that disposes events, and is as natural as the resin of Arabian trees.—Only nature has a right to grieve perpetually, for she only is innocent. Soon the ice will melt, and the blackbirds sing along the river which he frequented, as pleasantly as ever. The same everlasting serenity will appear in this face of God, and we will not be sorrowful, if he is not.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
A man’s house burns down. The smoking wreckage represents only a ruined home that was dear through years of use and pleasant associations. By and by, as the days and weeks go on, first he misses this, then that, then the other thing. And when he casts about for it he finds that it was in that house. Always it is an essential—there was but one of its kind. It cannot be replaced. It was in that house. It is irrevocably lost. It will be years before the tale of lost essentials is complete, and not till then can he truly know the magnitude of his disaster.
—Mark Twain (1835–1910) American Humorist
Pain hardens, and great pain hardens greatly, whatever the comforters say, and suffering does not ennoble, though it may occasionally lend a certain rigid dignity of manner to the suffering frame.
—A. S. Byatt (b.1936) English Novelist, Poet
No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.
—C. S. Lewis (1898-1963) Irish-born British Academic, Author, Literary Scholar
Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Grief and sadness knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger than common joys.
—Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) French Poet, Politician, Historian
On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us…
—Orison Swett Marden (1850–1924) American New Thought Writer, Physician, Entrepreneur
The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
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