Popular quotes about Grief! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 25
One of the difficulties with grief research is that it risks making certain kinds of grief seem normal and others abnormal - and of course having a sense of the contours of grief is, I think, truly useful, one has to remember it's not a science, it's an individual reckoning, which science is just trying to help us describe.
Meghan O'RourkeWe collected in a group in front of their door, and we experienced within ourselves a grief that was new for us, the ancient grief of the people that has no land, the grief without hope of the exodus which is renewed in every century.
Primo LeviAnother misconception is that if we truly loved someone, we will never finish with our grief, as if continued sorrow is a testimonial to our love. But true love does not need grief to support its truth. Love can last in a healthy and meaningful way, once our grief is dispelled. We can honor our dead more by the quality of our continued living than by our constantly remembering the past.
Judy TatelbaumTo mourn is to wonder at the strangeness that grief is not written all over your face in bruised hieroglyphics. And it's also to feel, quite powerfully, that you're not allowed to descend into the deepest fathom of your grief - that to do so would be taboo somehow.
Meghan O'RourkeIn the history of thought and culture the dark nights have perhaps in some ways cost mankind less grief than the false dawns, the prison houses in which hope persists less grief than the promised lands where hope expires.
Louis KronenbergerReal grief is not healed by time... if time does anything, it deepens our grief. The longer we live, the more fully we become aware of who she was for us, and the more intimately we experience what her love meant for us. Real, deep love is, as you know, very unobtrusive, seemingly easy and obvious, and so present that we take it for granted. Therefore, it is only in retrospect - or better, in memory - that we fully realize its power and depth. Yes, indeed, love often makes itself visible in pain.
Henri NouwenI sometimes hold it half a sin To put in words the grief I feel For words, like nature, half reveal And half conceal the soul within. But, for the unquiet heart and brain A use measured language lie's The sad mechanic exercise Like dull narcotic's, numbing pain In words, like weeds, I'll wrap me o'er Like coarsest clothes against the cold But large grief which these enfold Is given in outline and no more.
Alfred Lord TennysonYou mourn, for it is proper to mourn. But your grief serves you; you do not become a slave to grief. You bid the dead farewell, and you continue.
Neil GaimanGrief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.
Andrew Solomononly grieving can heal grief; the passage of time will lessen the acuteness, but time alone, without the direct experience of grief, will not heal it.
Anne LamottNo benefit comes from a just man's prayer if he who asks for it finds more pleasure in sin than in virtue. For Samuel mourned over Saul when he sinned, but he was not able to obtain God's mercy, for his grief was not supported by the necessary change of life on the part of the sinner. Hence God put an end to the pointless grief of His servant, saying to him, 'How long will you mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel?' (I Sam. 16:1).
Maximus the ConfessorI'm just a psycho myself. I loved playing Leila [from Fifty Shades Darker], taking on [a character] who's completely unhinged. I saw her as a girl who's grief-stricken and she just doesn't have the tools to cope. Grief and heartbreak, it makes you do some pretty crazy things.
Bella HeathcoteWe all want to do something to mitigate the pain of loss or to turn grief into something positive, to find a silver lining in the clouds. But I believe there is real value in just standing there, being still, being sad.
John GreenIs 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 ShakespeareSometimes my grief is overwhelming, and even though I understand that we will never see each other again, there is a part of me that wants to hold on to you forever.
Nicholas SparksGrief does not expire like a candle or the beacon on a lighthouse. It simply changes temperature. It becomes a kind of personal weather system. Snow settles in the liver. The bowels grow thick with humidity. Ice congeals in the stomach. Frost spiderwebs in the lungs. The heart fills with warm rain that turns to mist and evaporates through a colder artery.
Adam RappIt's so curious: one can resist tears and 'behave' very well in the hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign behind a window, or one notices that a flower that was in bud only yesterday has suddenly blossomed, or a letter slips from a drawer... and everything collapses.
Sidonie Gabrielle ColetteShe lost much of her appetite. At night, an invisible hand kept shaking her awake every few hours. Grief was physiological, a disturbance of the blood. Sometimes a whole minute would pass in nameless dread - the bedside clock ticking, the blue moonlight coating the window like glue - before she`d remember the brutal fact that had caused it.
Jeffrey EugenidesHelp" is a prayer that is always answered. It doesn't matter how you pray--with your head bowed in silence, or crying out in grief, or dancing. Churches are good for prayer, but so are garages and cars and mountains and showers and dance floors. Years ago I wrote an essay that began, "Some people think that God is in the details, but I have come to believe that God is in the bathroom.
Anne LamottShould pain and suffering, sorrow, and grief, rise up like clouds and overshadow for a time the Sun of Righteousness and hide Him from your view, do not be dismayed, for in the end this cloud of woe will descend in showers of blessing on your head, and the Sun of Righteousness rise upon you to set no more forever.
Sadhu Sundar SinghI am someone who has a cold heart. If I am beside a great grief I throw barriers up so the loss cannot go too deep or too far. There is a wall instantly in place, and it will not fall.
Michael OndaatjeAnd during the campaign of 1936, she writes that she and her brother would always rather be out doing things when they're sick, rather than take to their beds. And I think Eleanor Roosevelt always responded to pain by doing more, by doing something, by being active. And I think she just couldn't bear to look at her childhood grief. And she didn't.
Blanche Wiesen CookThere 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 PicoultWhat I know about living is the pain is never just ours Every time I hurt I know the wound is an echo So I keep a listening to the moment the grief becomes a window When I can see what I couldnโt see before, through the glass of my most battered dream, I watched a dandelion lose its mind in the wind and when it did, it scattered a thousand seeds. So the next time I tell you how easily I come out of my skin, donโt try to put me back in just say here we are together at the window aching for it to all get better
Andrea GibsonWe 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 AstellIf I didn't write in my journal every couple of days, I felt like I was going to burst. Later I learned the research about how important journaling can be to recovering from trauma and grief. That was definitely true for me.
Sheryl SandbergBefore the New York Times starts running "Portraits in Grief" of former Enron employees, it's worth remembering that even after the collapse, Enron stock is still worth more than the entire Social Security "trust fund."
Ann CoulterWhat 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 BanvilleWho is it that loves and who that suffers? He alone stages a play with Himself; who exists save Him? The individual suffers because he perceives duality. It is duality which causes all sorrow and grief. Find the One everywhere and in everything and there will be an end to pain and suffering.
Anandamayi MaHer grief was so big and wild it terrified her, like an evil beast that had erupted from under the floorboards.
J. K. RowlingIn our culture I think most people think of grief as sadness, and that's certainly part of it, a large part of it, but there's also this thorniness, these edges that come out.
Anthony Rappunder the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.
Robert Anton WilsonThe humiliation that Jane had felt turned to something else--grief perhaps, or regret. Regret that she had not known how to act with a boy, regret that she had not been wiser.
Beverly ClearyI 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 GoodallI believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.
Robert FulghumVerily, I swear, it is better to be lowly born, and range with humble livers in content, than to be perked up in a glistering grief, and wear a golden sorrow.
William ShakespeareYou have moments of grief in life, and if you can put pen to paper and capture that, that's something wonderful. I can revisit actual songs about past deaths, and I know that emotion is as true now as it was then.
John LydonGolf and women are a lot alike. You know you are not going to wind up with anything but grief, but you can't resist the impulse.
Jackie GleasonThe sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal.
Joanna Macy