Grief quotes
2.1K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Explore further
Browse quotes that often appear alongside grief — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"We find a place for what we lose. Although we know that after such a loss the acute stage of mourning will subside, we also know that we shall remain inconsolable and will never find a substitute. No matter what may fill the gap, even if it be filled completely, it nevertheless remains something else."
"There are some griefs so loud/They could bring down the sky/And there are griefs so still/None knows how deep they lie."
"Grief changes shape, but it never ends."
"Why does tragedy exist? Because you are full of rage. Why are you full of rage? Because you are full of grief."
"For people sometimes believed that it was safer to live with complaints, was necessary to cooperate with grief, was all right to become an accomplice in self-ambush... Take heart to flat out decide to be well and stride into the future sane and whole."
"The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves."
"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them."
"There is an hour, a minute - you will remember it forever - when you know instinctively on the basis of the most inconsequential evidence, that something is wrong. You don't know - can't know - that it is the first of a series of "wrongful" events that will culminate in the utter devastation of your life as you have known it."
"There is a day of sunny rest For every dark and troubled night; And grief may hide an evening guest, But joy shall come with early light."
"There is no law that gods must be fair, Achilles,” Chiron said. “And perhaps it is the greater grief, after all, to be left on earth when another is gone. Do you think?"
"For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one."
"Success doesn't change you... It reveals you"
"From nothing else but the brain come joys, delights, laughter and sports, and sorrows, griefs, despondency, and lamentations"
"Grief has limits, whereas apprehension has none. For we grieve only for what we know has happened, but we fear all that possibly may happen."
"The failure to cultivate virtue, the failure to examine and analyze what I have learned, the inability to move toward righteousness after being shown the way, the inability to correct my faults-these are the causes of my grief."
"Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay."
"Why have you come to me here, dear heart, with all these instructions? I promise you I will do everything just as you ask. But come closer. Let us give in to grief, however briefly, in each other's arms."
"How many mysteries have you seen in your lifetime? How many nets pulled full over the boat's side, each silver body ready or not falling into submission? How many roses in early summer uncurling above the pale sands then falling back in unfathomable willingness? And what can you say? Glory to the rose and the leaf, to the seed, to the silver fish. Glory to time and the wild fields, and to joy. And to grief's shock and torpor, its near swoon."
"To weep is to make less the depth of grief."
"Cease to lament for that thou canst not help; and study help for that which thou lamentest."
