Sorrows are like thunderclouds – in the distance they look black, over our heads scarcely gray.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
He whose days in wilful woe are worn, the grace of his Creator doth despise, that will not use his gifts for thankless niggardise.
—Edmund Spenser (1552–99) English Poet
Weep no more, nor sigh, nor groan,
Sorrow calls no time that ‘s gone;
Violets plucked, the sweetest rain
Makes not fresh nor grow again.
—John Fletcher
The only thing grief as taught me is to know how shallow it is.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Grief should be the instructor of the wise: sorrow is knowledge; they who know the most must mourn the deepest o’er the fatal truth,—the tree of knowledge is not that of life.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
The busy have no time for tears.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Sadness and gladness succeed each other.
—Common Proverb
No society has been able to abolish human sadness, no political system can deliver us from the pain of living, from our fear of death, our thirst for the absolute. It is the human condition that directs the social condition, not vice versa.
—Eugene Ionesco (1909–94) Romanian-born French Dramatist
Pain and fear and hunger are effects of causes which can be foreseen and known: but sorrow is a debt which someone else makes for us.
—Freya Stark (1893–1993) British Explorer, Writer
Some say that happiness is not good for mortals, and they ought to be answered that sorrow is not fit for immortals and is utterly useless to any one; a blight never does good to a tree, and if a blight kill not a tree but it still bear fruit, let none say that the fruit was in consequence of the blight.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Those who are unhappy have no need for anything in this world but people capable of giving them their attention.
—Simone Weil (1909–1943) French Philosopher, Political Activist
There is something pleasurable in calm remembrance of a past sorrow.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
It is a curious sensation: the sort of pain that goes mercifully beyond our powers of feeling. When your heart is broken, your boats are burned: nothing matters any more. It is the end of happiness and the beginning of peace.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living.
—Antoine de Saint-Exupery (1900–44) French Novelist, Aviator
Keep aloof from sadness, says an Icelandic writer, “for sadness is a sickness of the soul.” Life has, indeed, many ills, but the mind that views every object in its most cheering aspect, and every doubtful dispensation as replete with latent good, bears within itself a powerful and perpetual antidote. The gloomy soul aggravates misfortune, while a cheerful smile often dispels those mists that portend a storm.
—Lydia H. Sigourney (1791–1865) American Poetaster, Author
Joys impregnate. Sorrows bring forth.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.
—Kahlil Gibran (1883–1931) Lebanese-born American Philosopher, Poet, Painter, Theologian, Sculptor
Sorrow breaks season, and reposing hours; makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Sorrow has the fortunate peculiarity that it preys upon itself. It dies of starvation. Since it is essentially an interruption of habits, it can be replaced by new habits. Constituting, as it does, a void, it is soon filled up by a real “horror vacuum.”
—August Strindberg (1849–1912) Swedish Playwright, Novelist, Essayist
There are seeds of self-destruction in all of us that will bear only unhappiness if allowed to grow.
—Dorothea Brande (1893–1948) American Writer, Editor
For us there is only one season, the season of sorrow. The very sun and moon seem taken from us. Outside, the day may be blue and gold, but the light that creeps down through the thickly-muffled glass of the small iron-barred window beneath which one sits is grey and niggard. It is always twilight in one’s cell, as it is always twilight in one’s heart. And in the sphere of thought, no less than in the sphere of time, motion is no more.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
The world will never be long without some good reason to hate the unhappy; their real faults are immediately detected, and if those are not sufficient to sink them into infamy, an additional weight of calumny will be super added.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
The cure for sorrow is to learn something.
—Barbara Sher (1935–2020) American Career Coach
‘Tis impious in a good man to be sad.
—Edward Young (1683–1765) English Poet
The lives of happy people are dense with their own doings—crowded, active, thick. But the sorrowing are nomads, on a plain with few landmarks and no boundaries; sorrow’s horizons are vague and its demands are few.
—Larry McMurtry (1936–2021) American Novelist, Screenwriter
The only thing worried thoughts have the power to change is what the next thing will be for you to worry over!
—Guy Finley
Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
Sorrow is mere rust of the soul; activity will cleanse and brighten it.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Sorrow is easy to express and so hard to tell.
—Joni Mitchell (b.1943) Canadian Singer, Songwriter
There are moments when, even to the sober eye of Reason, the world of our sad humanity must assume the aspect of Hell
—Edgar Allan Poe (1809–49) American Poet