The past is as powerless to darken the present moment as is a shadow to reach up and drag down the form that casts it.
—Guy Finley
All of our unhappiness comes from our inability to be alone.
—Jean de La Bruyere (1645–96) French Satiric Moralist, Author
Since my earliest childhood a barb of sorrow has lodged in my heart. As long as it stays I am ironic—if it is pulled out I shall die.
—Soren Kierkegaard (1813–55) Danish Philosopher, Theologian
The busy have no time for tears.
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
Sorrow breaks season, and reposing hours; makes the night morning, and the noontide night.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
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
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
Cares are often more difficult to throw off than sorrows; the latter die with time, the former grow.
—Jean Paul (1763–1825) German Novelist, Philosopher
The only one interested in hearing your sad story is . . . you; and even you wish you didn�t have to relive it again!
—Guy Finley
The only thing worried thoughts have the power to change is what the next thing will be for you to worry over!
—Guy Finley
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
Sorrows cannot all be explained away in a life truly lived, grief and loss accumulate like possessions.
—Stefan Kanfer (1933–2018) American Journalist, Critic, Author, Editor
Man’s unhappiness, as I construe, comes of his greatness; it is because there is an Infinite in him, which with all his cunning he cannot quite bury under the Finite.
—Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish Historian, Essayist
The secret of being miserable is to have the leisure to bother about whether you are happy or not. The cure is occupation.
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950) Irish Playwright
The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
Silence is medication for sorrow.
—Arabic Proverb
Where there is sorrow, there is holy ground.
—Oscar Wilde (1854–1900) Irish Poet, Playwright
Let no one till his death
Be called unhappy. Measure not the work
Until the day’s out and the labor done:
Then bring your gauges.
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–61) English Poet
One cannot be deeply responsive to the world without being saddened very often.
—Erich Fromm (1900–80) German-American Psychoanalyst, Social Philosopher
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these: “It might have been!”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist
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
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 essential sadness is to go through life without loving. But it would be almost equally sad to leave this world without ever telling those you loved that you love them.
—Indian Proverb
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
I can see the humorous side of things and enjoy the fun when it comes; but look where I will, there seems to me always more sadness than joy in life.
—Jerome K. Jerome (1859–1927) English Humorous Writer, Novelist, Playwright
It isn’t enough for your heart to break because everybody’s heart is broken now.
—Allen Ginsberg (1926–97) American Poet, Activist
Melancholy, indeed, should be diverted by every means but drinking.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
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 tranquility remembered in emotion.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
A sorrow’s crown of sorrow is remembering happier times.
—Alfred, Lord Tennyson (1809–92) British Poet
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