Popular quotes about Grief! Wisdom and inspiration are here!
It is good to divert our sorrow for other things to the root of all, which is sin. Let our grief run most in that channel, that as sin bred grief, so grief may consume sin.
Richard SibbesGrief is neither a disorder nor a healing process; it is a sign of health itself, a whole and natural gesture of love. Nor must we see grief as a step toward something better. No matter how much it hurts-and it may be the greatest pain in life-grief can be an end in itself, a pure expression of love.
Gerald MayI think grief is a huge subject; it's one of the things that everybody is going to confront in one way or another. There's been a lot of books written about how Americans have an odd way of trying to defer grief or minimize the need to grieve. People used to have a lot more ritual grief in their lives. For the most part, we think of it as a strictly temporal process: you grieve for a time and then you're over [it], but it's also a spatial process. It travels across a map.
John DarnielleWhen you are wanting to comfort someone in their grief take the words 'at least' out of your vocabulary. In saying them you minimise someone else's pain...Don't take someone else's grief and try to put it in a box that YOU can manage. Learn to truly grieve with others for as long as it may take.
Kay WarrenMy sister will die over and over again for the rest of my life. Grief is forever. It doesn't go away; it becomes a part of you, step for step, breath for breath. I will never stop grieving Bailey because I will never stop loving her. That's just how it is. Grief and love are conjoined, you don't get one without the other. All I can do is love her, and love the world, emulate her by living with daring and spirit and joy.
Jandy NelsonTelevision has never known what to do with grief, which resists narrative: the dramas of grief are largely internal - for the bereaved, it is a chaotic, intense, episodic period, but the chaos is by and large subterranean, and easily appears static to the friendly onlooker who has absorbed the fact of loss and moved on.
Meghan O'RourkeIf grief or anger arises, Let there be grief or anger. This is the Buddha in all forms,Sun Buddha, Moon Buddha, Happy Buddha, Sad Buddha. It is the universe offering all things to awaken and open our heart.
Jack KornfieldA brave action is often followed by grief. Do not let my resistance to grief stop the brave action.
Alanis MorissetteGrief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.
Andrew SolomonGrief ennobles the commonest people because it has its own essential grandeur. To shine with the luster of grief, a person need only be sincere.
Honore de BalzacIt is possible I am pushing through solid rock, like the vein of ore encased, alone. I am such a long way in I can see no way through and no space. Everything is close to my face and everything close to my face is stone. I don't have much knowledge yet in grief, so this darkness makes me feel small. You, be the Master; Make yourself fierce; break in. And then your great transforming will happen to me And my great grief cry will happen to you.
Rainer Maria RilkeHe didn't know of course. Not really. And yet that was what he said, and I was soothed to hear it. For I knew what he meant. We all have our sorrows, and although the exact delineaments, weight, and dimensions of grief are different for everyone, the color of grief is common to us all. "I know," he said, because he was human, and therefore, in a way, he did.
Diane SetterfieldHe found it so easy and so pleasant to cry that he didnโt try to stop for a while, until he realized he was forcing his sobs a little, exaggerating their depth with unnecessary shudders. โฆ The whole point of crying is to quit before you coined it up. The whole point of grief itself was to cut it out while it was still honest, while it still meant something. Because the thing was so easily corrupted
Richard YatesIs there no pity sitting in the clouds That sees into the bottom of my grief? O sweet my mother, cast me not away! Delay this marriage for a month, a week, Or if you do not, make the bridal bed In that dim monument where Tybalt lies.
William ShakespeareCan I see another's woe, And not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, And not seek for kind relief? Can I see a falling tear, And not feel my sorrow's share? Can a father see his child Weep, nor be with sorrow filled? Can a mother sit and hear An infant groan, an infant fear? No, no! never can it be! Never, never can it be!
William BlakeNo matter how difficult things are, and no matter how much grief and loss there is, you can turn it into something positive.
Michael SheenO, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with Time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face. But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?
William ShakespeareDon't engage your heart in grief over the past or you wont be ready for what is coming.
Ali ibn Abi TalibThere are all sorts of losses people suffer - from the small to the large. You can lose your keys, your glasses, your virginity. You can lose your head, you can lose your heart, you can lose your mind. You can relinquish your home to move into assisted living, or have a child move overseas, or see a spouse vanish into dementia. Loss is more than just death, and grief is the gray shape-shifter of emotion.
Jodi PicoultFor me as an American, the most painful aspect of this is that I believe that administration has taken the events of 9/11 and has manipulated the grief of the country and I think that's reprehensible.
Dustin HoffmanMaybe Iโm just tired. (Geary) People only say that when theyโre not really willing to deal with the issue at hand. Itโs like when you ask a guy what heโs thinking and he says โnothingโ but in reality you know heโs checking out another woman and he doesnโt want you to give him grief over it. Itโs Thiaโs theory. (Tory) I think you need to stay away from her before she corrupts you. (Geary) Nah, itโs too much fun. She has the most misguided views on everything. But I think what I just said is one of the few lucid thoughts sheโs ever managed. (Tory)
Sherrilyn KenyonWe may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin.
Mary AstellDon't run away from grief, oโ soul/ Look for the remedy inside the pain/ because the rose came from the thorn/ and the ruby came from a stone.
RumiIn some cases, some people do get depressed in the middle of their grief and they really need to be treated for depression.
Kay Redfield JamisonWhat I was afraid of was my own grief, the weight of it, the ineluctable corrosive force of it, and the stark awareness I had of being, for the first time in my life, entirely alone, a Crusoe shipwrecked and stranded in the limitless wastes of a boundless and indifferent ocean.
John BanvilleYou almost believe that you will never come to the end of a roll of tape; and when you do, there is a feeling, nearly, though very briefly, of shock and grief.
Nicholson BakerThe very dull truth is that writing love scenes is the same as writing other scenes - your job is to be fully engaged in the character's experience. What does this mean to them? How are they changed by it, or not? I remember being a little nervous, as I am when writing any high-stakes, intense scene (death, sex, grief, joy).
Madeline MillerThis is a racist and imperialist war. The warmongers who stole the White House have hijacked a nation's grief and turned it into a perpetual war on any non-white country they choose to describe as terrorist.
Woody HarrelsonThere's a conflicted look in Day's eyes, a joy and a grief, that makes him so vulnerable. I realize how little defense he has against my words. He loves so wholly. It is his nature.
Marie LuWhat importance can we attach to the things of this world? Friendship? It disappears when the one who is liked comes to grief, or the one who likes becomes powerful. Love? it is deceived, fleeting, or guilty. Fame? You share it with mediocrity or crime. Fortune? Could that frivolity be counted a blessing? All that remains are those so-called happy days that flow past unnoticed in the obscurity of domestic cares, leaving man with the desire neither to lose his life nor to begin it over.
Franรงois-Renรฉ de ChateaubriandIt's come at last," she thought, "the time when you can no longer stand between your children and heartache. When there wasn't enough food in the house you pretended that you weren't hungry so they could have more. In the cold of a winter's night you got up and put your blanket on their bed so they wouldn't be cold. You'd kill anyone who tried to harm them - I tried my best to kill that man in the hallway. Then one sunny day, they walk out in all innocence and they walk right into the grief that you'd give your life to spare them from.
Betty SmithI believe that the tragedy [like terror attack] that's caused so much grief and suffering to so many thousands and thousands of people has also served as a call to action, because many people now are re-examining their own value systems, and the churches, temples, mosques and cathedrals are packed to overflowing for the first time in years.
Jane GoodallJoy and grief are never far apart. In the same street the shutters of one house are closed, while the curtains of the next are brushed by shadow of the dance. A wedding-party returns from church, and a funeral winds to its door. The smiles and the sadness of life are the tragi-comedy of Shakespeare. Gladness and sighs brighten and dim the mirror he beholds.
Robert Aris WillmottI know that it's easier to look at death than it is to look at pain, because while death is irrevocable, and the grief will lessen in time, pain is too often merely relentless and irreversible.
Robert GoolrickAnd knowing that the only alternative to your grief is the nothingness thatโs fast approaching, you try to embrace your own sorrow, to be open and empty and let it all pass through you. This is the key, you have learned โ to relinquish control, to relinquish the desire for control. Even in this late drama, to try to control is to go mad. And so you do your best to let it all go.
Ron Currie Jr.Defeat may serve as well as victory To shake the soul and let the glory out. When the great oak is straining in the wind, The boughs drink in new beauty and the trunk Sends down a deeper root on the windward side. Only the soul that knows the mighty grief Can know the mighty rapture, Sorrows come To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.
Edwin MarkhamMy outlook was so limited that I assumed that all deviates were openly despised and rejected. Their grief and their fear drew my melancholy nature strongly. At first I only wanted to wallow in their misery, but, as time went by, I longed to reach its very essence. Finally I desired to represent it. By this process I managed to shift homosexuality from being a burden to being a cause. The weight lifted and some of the guilt evaporated.
Quentin CrispWomen were different, no doubt about it. Men broke so much more quickly. Grief didn't break women. Instead it wore them down, it hollowed them out very slowly.
Cornelia FunkeGreat grief makes sacred those upon whom its hand is laid. Joy may elevate, ambition glorify, but sorrow alone can consecrate.
Horace GreeleySometimes I think God is like weather - you may not like the weather, but it has nothing to do with you. You just happen to be there. Deal with it. Sadness and grief are part of being human and always will be.
Douglas CouplandI knew it in my bones. That this time was it. I had finally made my choice, and so had he. He let me go. I was relieved, which I expected. What I didn't expect was to feel so much grief.
Jenny HanIf I could wish the Kingslayer back in chains I would. You freed him without my knowledge or consent... but what you did, I know you did for love. For Arya and Sansa, and out of grief for Bran and Rickon. Loveโs not always wise, Iโve learned. It can lead us to great folly, but we follow our hearts... wherever they take us. Donโt we, Mother?
George R. R. Martin