Grief Sayings and Quotes

Below you will find our collection of inspirational, wise, and humorous old grief quotes, grief sayings, and grief proverbs, collected over the years from a variety of sources.

You will lose someone you can't live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn't seal back up. And you come through. It's like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp. Anne Lamott
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. Leo Tolstoy
And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief. William Cullen Bryant
Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place, and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope Elizabeth Gilbert
The reality is that we don't forget, move on, and have closure, but rather we honor, we remember, and incorporate our deceased children and siblings into our lives in a new way. In fact, keeping memories of your loved one alive in your mind and heart is an important part of your healing journey. Harriet Schiff
No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear. C.S. Lewis
You give yourself permission to grieve by recognizing the need for grieving. Grieving is the natural way of working through the loss of a love. Grieving is not weakness nor absence of faith. Grieving is as natural as crying when you are hurt, sleeping when you are tired or sneezing when your nose itches. It is nature's way of healing a broken heart. Doug Manning
For some moments in life there are no words. David Seltzer
There is no grief like the grief that does not speak. Henry Wordsworth
Grieving is a journey that teaches us how to love in a new way now that our loved one is no longer with us. Consciously remembering those who have died is the key that opens the hearts, that allows us to love them in new ways. Tom Attig
He wept, and it felt as if the tears were cleansing him, as if his body needed to empty itself. Lois Lowry
While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it. Samuel Johnson
Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break. William Shakespeare
He sought to transform the grief that looks down into the grave by showing it the grief that looks up to the stars. Victor Hugo
Even hundredfold grief is divisible by love. Terri Guillemets
Sorrow makes us all children again - destroys all differences of intellect. The wisest know nothing. Ralph Waldo Emerson
I measure every grief I meet with narrow, probing eyes - I wonder if it weighs like mine - or has an easier size. Emily Dickinson
Grieving is a necessary passage and a difficult transition to finally letting go of sorrow - it is not a permanent rest stop. Dodinsky
No one can keep his griefs in their prime; they use themselves up. E.M. Cioran
Grief is a species of idleness. Samuel Johnson
Grief is itself a medicine. William Cowper
If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble. Moliere
Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us. Orison Swett Marden
Grief is light that is capable of counsel. Proverb
All things grow with time, except grief. Jewish Proverb
The display of grief makes more demands than grief itself. How few men are sad in their own company. Seneca
Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly. Seneca
Grief fills the room up of my absent child, lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words. William Shakespeare
Grief at the absence of a loved one is happiness compared to life with a person one hates. Jean De La Bruyere
Grief is only the memory of widowed affections. James Martineau
Grief is the agony of an instant. The indulgence of grief the blunder of a life. Benjamin Disraeli
Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys. Alphonse De Lamartine
One often calms one's grief by recounting it. Pierre Corneille
She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with it as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts. George Eliot
Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past. Walker Percy
The only cure for grief is action. George Henry Lewis
Time takes away the grief of men. Desiderius Erasmus
When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left. Sufi Epigram
Grief will happen either as an open healing wound or a closed festering wound, either honestly or dishonestly, either appropriately or inappropriately. But emotions will be expressed. Elisabeth Kubler Ross
No one is immune to grief. There are those amongst us today who have grieved deeply in the past, and there are those who are grieving deeply now and sadly. All of us will grieve at some time in the future. Lorraine Kember
One of the most important things we can do for people who are grieving is to give them a safe place in which to experience and express their pain J. Nelson
Most people move though grief at their own unique pace and many eventually find a peaceful acceptance. This does not mean that this terrible loss is "OK", but rather that one is no longer battling reality and has come to a place of acceptance of what is. Marsha Barnosky
Grief - Happiness is to feel that one's soul is good; there is no other, in truth, and this kind of happiness may exist even in sorrow, so that there are griefs perfable to every joy, and such as would be preferred by all those who have felt them. Joseph Joubert
As much as it hurts, suppressing how you feel is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker and turning off the steam valve, eventually it will blow. By expressing your emotions, you start the healing process M. Hunter
Grief is love not wanting to let go. Earl A. Grollman
Grief seems to me like a winter house: guarded, sheltered against an outside world that's expected to be difficult. The windows are small to keep out the cold, and little light gets in. The darkness and warmth make a cozy place to hide, to nurse wounds, to incubate what is not yet ready to be exposed. Janet Cedar Spring
Grief, as I read somewhere once, is a lazy Susan. One day it is heavy and underwater, and the next day it spins and stops at loud and rageful, and the next day at wounded keening, and the next day numbness, silence. Anne Lamott
Grief is like the wind. When it's blowing hard, you adjust your sails and run before it. If it blows too hard, you stay in the harbor, close the hatches and don't take calls. When it's gentle, you go sailing, have a picnic, take a swim." Barbara Lazear Ascher
Grief is a sign that we loved something more than ourselves. . . . Grief makes us worthy to suffer with the rest of the world. Joan Chittister
The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter's oven? Kahlil Gibran