Grief quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
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Browse quotes that often appear alongside grief — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
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"He that is thy friend indeed, He will help thee in thy need: If thou sorrow, he will weep; If thou wake, he cannot sleep: Thus of every grief in heart He with thee does bear a part. These are certain signs to know Faithful friend from flattering foe."
"Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so, To make my end too sudden."
"Would I were dead, if God's good will were so, For what is in this world but grief and woe?"
"Shorten my days thou canst with sullen sorrow, And pluck nights from me, but not lend a morrow; Thou canst help time to furrow me with age, But stop no wrinkle in his pilgrimage."
"for my grief's so great That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. (Constance, from King John, Act III, scene 1)"
"You have but mistook me all the while... I live by bread like you, taste grief, feel want, need friends. Conditioned thus how can you call me king?"
"Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business, Hath raised me from my bed; nor doth the general care Take hold on me; for my particular grief Is of so floodgate and o'erbearing nature That it engluts and swallows other sorrows, And it is still itself."
"Those that much covet are with gain so fond, For what they have not, that which they possess They scatter and unloose it from their bond, And so, by hoping more, they have but less; Or, gaining more, the profit of excess Is but to surfeit, and such griefs sustain, That they prove bankrupt in this poor-rich gain."
"Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief."
"a young woman in love always looks like patience on a monument smiling at grief"
"Aand in the end, Having my freedom, boast of nothing else But that I was a journeyman to grief?"
"Mine eyes are full of tears, my heart of grief."
"Living the same sorrows three times was a suffering, but it was a suffering to relive even the same joys. The joy of life is born from feeling, whether it be joy or grief, always of short duration, and woe to those who know they will enjoy eternal bliss."
"I still loved Marc desperately and couldn’t imagine life without him. Jace was…something else. Something I could feel but couldn’t articulate. Something I wanted, and hadn’t been able to resist in my grief-weakened state. He was something that would have to wait."
"People talk about the pain of grief, but I don't know what they mean. To me, grief is a devastating numbness, every sensation dulled."
"I have discovered that sitting still leaves little spaces for the grief to get in, so I stay busy."
"It happened. It was awful. You aren't perfect. That's all there is. Don't confuse your grief with guilt."
"Don't confuse your grief with guilt."
"I was angry with him before. I’m not really sure why. Maybe I was just angry that the world had become such a complicated place, that I have never known even a fraction of the truth about it. Or that I allowed myself to grieve for someone who was never really gone, the same way I grieved for my mother all the years I thought she was dead. Tricking someone into grief is one of the cruelest tricks a person can play, and it’s been played on me twice."
"In the days that follow, it's movement, not stillness, that helps to keep the grief at bay."
