Rumi
Poet, Philosopher
"Don't dismiss the heart, even if it's filled with sorrow. God's treasures are buried in broken hearts."
Sorrow quotes
Sorrow
1.2K quotes on this topic — from poets, philosophers, and thinkers across history.
Jacob Lawrence
Artist
"This is my genre...the happiness, tragedies, and the sorrows of mankind as realized in the teeming black ghetto."
Frida Kahlo
Painter
"I drank to drown my sorrows, but the damned things learned how to swim."
Leonard Cohen
Singer-Songwriter
"I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere."
Khalil Gibran
Poet, Writer
"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. Some of you say, "Joy is greater than sorrow," and others say, "Nay, sorrow is the greater." But I say unto you, they are inseparable. Together they come, and when one sits alone with you at your board, remember that the other is asleep upon your bed. Verily you are suspended like scales between your sorrow and your joy."
Explore further
Topics related to Sorrow
Browse quotes that often appear alongside sorrow — connected by shared ideas and recurring themes.
Quote collection
Sorrow quotes (page 1 of 58)
Follow a thought to its author, or read the full quote page.
"[On her wearing pants:] The greatest sorrows from which women suffer today are those physical, moral and mental ones, that are caused by their unhygienic manner of dressing! The want of the ballot is but a toy by comparison."
Read quote
112 likes
"There is no more ridiculous custom than the one that makes you express sympathy once and for all on a given day to a person whose sorrow will endure as long as his life. Such grief, felt in such a way is always present, it is never too late to talk about it, never repetitious to mention it again."
Read quote
108 likes
"Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know."
Read quote
93 likes
"The mother is everything - she is our consolation in sorrow, our hope in misery, and our strength in weakness. She is the source of love, mercy, sympathy, and forgiveness. He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly"
Read quote
90 likes
"I found myself in a sea in which the waves of joy and sorrow were clashing against each other."
Read quote
83 likes
"A propensity to hope and joy is real riches; one to fear and sorrow real poverty."
Read quote
82 likes
"The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow"
Read quote
66 likes
"Ash Wednesday is full of joy...The source of all sorrow is the illusion that of ourselves we are anything but dust."
Read quote
66 likes
"There is a courage of happiness as well as a courage of sorrow."
Read quote
61 likes
"For if joyful is the fountain that rises in the sun, its springs are in the wells of sorrow unfathomable at the foundations of the Earth."
Read quote
57 likes
"You care so much you feel as though you will bleed to death with the pain of it."
Read quote
56 likes
"Show me a population that is deeply religious and I will show you a servile population, content with whips and chains, ... content to eat the bread of sorrow and drink the waters of affliction."
Read quote
56 likes
"Illusory joy is often worth more than genuine sorrow."
Read quote
52 likes
"There is, I am convinced, no picture that conveys in all its dreadfulness, a vision of sorrow, despairing, remediless, supreme. If I could paint such a picture, the canvas would show only a woman looking down at her empty arms."
Read quote
51 likes
"And if there's love, you can do without happiness too. Even with sorrow, life is sweet."
Read quote
48 likes
"Forget your troubles and dance! Forget your sorrows and dance! Forget your sickness and dance! Forget your weakness and dance!"
Read quote
45 likes
"Never have anything to do with likes and dislikes. The absence of what one likes is painful, as is the presence of what one dislikes. Therefore don't take a liking to anything. To lose what one likes is hard, but there are no bonds for those who have no likes and dislikes. From preference arises sorrow, from preference arises fear, but he who is freed from preference has no sorrow and certainly no fear."
Read quote
40 likes
"The end of desire is the end of sorrow."
Read quote
39 likes
"Even convicts, with whom I have spent some time, are not won over in any other way. Whenever I happened to speak sharply to them, I spoiled everything; on the contrary, when I praised them for their resignation and sympathized with them in their sufferings; when I told them they were fortunate to have their purgatory in this world, when I kissed their chains, showed compassion for their distress, and expressed sorrow for their misfortune, it was then that they listened to me, gave glory to God, and opened themselves to salvation."
Read quote
38 likes
"In the valley of sorrow, spread your wings."
Read quote
38 likes