In this sad world of ours, sorry comes to all, and it often comes with bitter agony. Perfect relief is not possible, except with time. You cannot now believe that you will ever feel better. But this is not true. You are sure to be happy again. Knowing this, truly believing it, will make you less miserable now.
—Abraham Lincoln (1809–65) American Head of State
One can never be the judge of another’s grief. That which is a sorrow to one, to another is joy. Let us not dispute with any one concerning the reality of his sufferings; it is with sorrows as with countries—each man has his own.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
Pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.
—Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) Russian Novelist
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
Sorrow is tranquility remembered in emotion.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
Cares are often more difficult to throw off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
She would have made a splendid wife, for crying only made her eyes more bright and tender.
—O. Henry (William Sydney Porter) (1862–1910) American Writer of Short Stories
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
There is no wisdom in useless and hopeless sorrow; but there is something in it so like virtue, that he who is wholly without it cannot be loved.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Our sorrows are like thunder-clouds, which seem black in the distance, but grow lighter as they approach.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist
We tell our triumphs to the crowds, but our own hearts are the sole confidants of our sorrows.
—Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton (1803–73) British Novelist, Poet, Politician
The cure for sorrow is to learn something.
—Barbara Sher (1935–2020) American Career Coach
Sorrow is the source of literature, joy is the source of virtue.
—Austin O’Malley (1858–1932) American Aphorist, Ophthalmologist
Those who are held wise among men, and who search for the reason of things, are those who bring the most sorrow upon themselves.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, 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
Light griefs do speak, while sorrow’s tongue is bound.
—Seneca the Younger (Lucius Annaeus Seneca) (c.4 BCE–65 CE) Roman Stoic Philosopher, Statesman, Tragedian
If we are more affected by the ruin of a palace than by the conflagration of a cottage, our humanity must have formed a very erroneous estimate of the miseries of human life.
—Edward Gibbon (1737–94) English Historian, Politician
Ah, this beautiful world! Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and heaven itself lies not far off; and then it suddenly changes and is dark and sorrowful, and the clouds shut out the day. In the lives of the saddest of us there are bright days when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms. Then come the gloomy hours, when all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not; and oftentimes we call a man cold when he is only sad.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
Sorrow breaks season, and reposing hours; makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
But, truly, I have wept too much! The Dawns are heartbreaking. Every moon is atrocious and every sun bitter.
—Arthur Rimbaud (1854–91) French Poet, Adventurer
Sorrow is to the soul what the worm is to wood
—Turkish Proverb
There are some men above grief and some men below it.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
Sorrows are our best educators. A man can see further through a tear than a telescope.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, great as each may be, their highest comfort given to the sorrowful is a cordial introduction into another’s woe. Sorrow’s the great community in which all men born of woman are members at one time or another.
—Sean O’Casey (1880–1964) Irish Dramatist, Memoirist
Only one-fourth of the sorrow in each man’s life is caused by outside uncontrollable elements, the rest is self-imposed by failing to analyze and act with calmness.
—Holbrook Jackson (1874–1948) British Journalist, Writer, Publisher
To forecast our sorrows is only to increase the suffering without increasing our strength to bear them.—Many of life’s noblest enterprises might never have been undertaken if all the difficulties and defects could be foreseen.
—Theodore L. Cuyler (1822–1909) American Presbyterian Clergyman, Writer
He that hath pity on another man’s sorrow shall be free from it himself; and he that delighteth in, and scorneth the misery of another shall one time or other fall into it himself.
—Walter Raleigh (1552–1618) English Courtier, Navigator, Poet
I shall not let a sorrow die until I find the heart of it, nor let a wordless joy go by until it talks to me a bit.
—Sara Teasdale (1884–1933) American Poet
We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
To fight aloud is very brave, but gallanter, I know, who charge within the bosom, the Cavalry of Woe.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
The pleasure that is in sorrow is sweeter than the pleasure of pleasure itself.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
Excessive sorrow laughs. Excessive joy weeps.
—William Blake (1757–1827) English Poet, Painter, Printmaker
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
Sorrow makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest knows nothing.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
The soul would have no rainbow had the eyes no tears.
—John Vance Cheney (1848–1922) American Poet, Essayist, Librarian
Sorrow is the handmaid of God, not of Satan.—She would lead us, as she did the Psalmist, to say, “Who will show us any good?” that after having said this we may also say with him, “Lord, lift thou the light of thy countenance upon us.”
—Arthur Sherburne Hardy (1847–1930) American Engineer, Educator, Editor, Diplomat, Novelist, Poet
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
That loss is common would not make My own less bitter, rather more: Too common! Never morning wore To evening, but some heart did break.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
We may learn from children how large a part of our grievances is imaginary. But the pain is just as real.
—Christian Nestell Bovee (1820–1904) American Writer, Aphorist
Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good.
—Ovid (Publius Ovidius Naso) (c.43 BCE–c.18 CE) Roman Poet
Sorrow is easy to express and so hard to tell.
—Joni Mitchell (b.1943) Canadian Singer, Songwriter
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
—Euripides (480–406 BCE) Ancient Greek Dramatist
It is foolish to tear one’s hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness.
—Cicero (106BCE–43BCE) Roman Philosopher, Orator, Politician, Lawyer
Wherever souls are being tried and ripened, in whatever commonplace and homely way, there God is hewing out the pillars for His temple.
—Phillips Brooks (1835–93) American Episcopal Clergyman, Author
There is peace and rest and comfort in sorrow
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
If there is a hell upon earth it is to be found in a melancholy man’s heart.
—Robert Burton (1577–1640) English Scholar, Clergyman
Never a tear bedims the eye that time and patience will not dry.
—Bret Harte (1836–1902) American Short Story Writer, Poet
The excursion is the same when you go looking for your sorrow as when you go looking for your joy.
—Eudora Welty (1909–2001) American Short Story Writer, Novelist
Has it never occurred to us, when surrounded by sorrows, that they may be sent to us only for our instruction, as we darken the eyes of birds when we wish them to sing?
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Humorist