Popular quotes about Loss! Wisdom and inspiration are here! | page 29
when people go away, or when we leave the places we love, or something we treasure goes out of our life - I have always noticed that before it happens - this leaving, this parting - when we think about it beforehand we are overwhelmed with sadness at the loss to come. ... the most unbearable sense of loss, the worst homesickness of all, so I have found, is this loss and sickness we feel beforehand, before we ever leave home.
Nan FairbrotherWhen I was 12, we moved from New Jersey to Florida. The Gulf of Mexico was literally my backyard. Every day, I could see the ocean. At low tide I went out and played in seagrass meadows that used to come right up to the shore, filled with tiny seahorses, pipefish and soft corals. There was so much life! But then I witnessed the change, the loss of the shoreline, the loss of the mangrove trees, the loss of the seagrass meadows. Shallow bay areas were turned into parking lots.
Sylvia EarleLoss makes me feel vulnerable. I've had my share, less than so many though, but enough to feel empathy. It's tough and I see it so much on Earth, too much suffering. The loss of free will I find unacceptable - what most of us refer to as rights.
Kristin Bauer van StratenOne of the grubby truths about a loss is that you don't just mourn the dead person, you mourn the person you got to be when the lost one was alive. This loss might even be what affects you the most.
Meghan O'RourkePoetry has its uses for despair. It can carve a shape in which a pain can seem to be; it can give oneโs loss a form and dimension so that it might be loss and not simply a hopeless haunting. It can do these things for one person, or it can do them for an entire culture. But poetry is for psychological, spiritual, or emotional pain. For physical pain it is, like everything but drugs, useless.
Christian WimanPeople lose people, we lose things in our life as we're constantly growing and changing. That's what life is is change, and a lot of that is loss. It's what you gain from that loss that makes life.
Thomas JaneHere's how I became myself: mess, failure, mistakes, disappointments, and extensive reading; limbo, indecision, setbacks, addiction, public embarrassment, and endless conversations with my best women friends; the loss of people without whom I could not live, the loss of pets that left me reeling, dizzying betrayals but much greater loyalty, and overall, choosing as my motto William Blake's line that we are here to learn to endure the beams of love.
Anne LamottThe risk of an investment is described by both the probability and the potential amount of loss. The risk of an investment-the probability of an adverse outcome-is partly inherent in its very nature. A dollar spent on biotechnology research is a riskier investment than a dollar used to purchase utility equipment. The former has both a greater probability of loss and a greater percentage of the investment at stake.
Seth KlarmanI just remember that disturbing feeling of walking into that prison, the complete loss of privacy, the complete loss of stimulation, dignity.
Cybill ShepherdYou can see exile as loss, and then it will be a loss for you. You can treat it as opportunity and then all kinds of benefits accrue.
Pico IyerMourning is one of the most profound human experiences that it is possible to have... The deep capacity to weep for the loss of a loved one and to continue to treasure the memory of that loss is one of our noblest human traits.
Edwin S. ShneidmanMy characters often start out with a loss of some sort, usually a loss of emotion or purpose or hope. What I do in the course of my writing is weave a thematic arc of fulfillment. It is my constant theme as a creator.
Vera NazarianI don't think when people sign up for a life of doing something they love to do they should have to sign up for a complete loss of privacy. I understand a little loss of privacy coming with the job.
Sarah ChalkeWhen you are a part of a world that is within an enclosed system, the biggest threat is that the loss of contact with any voice from the outside - a point of reference that is different from you - becomes habitual. The loss of this reference makes the enclosed system seem perfect. I can still feel this kind of threat today, the voice that gives legitimacy to various kinds of enclosure.
Wang JianweiUnlike some people who have experienced the loss of an animal, I did not believe, even for a moment, that I would never get another. I did know full well that there were just too many animals out there in need of homes for me to take what I have always regarded as the self-indulgent road of saying the heartbreak of the loss of an animal was too much ever to want to go through with it again. To me, such an admission brought up the far more powerful admission that all the wonderful times you had with your animal were not worth the unhappiness at the end.
Cleveland AmoryNow suppose both death and hell were utterly defeated. Suppose the fight was fixed. Suppose God took you on a crystal ball trip into your future and you saw with indubitable certainty that despite everything โ your sin, your smallness, your stupidity โ you could have free for the asking your whole crazy heartโs deepest desire: heaven, eternal joy. Would you not return fearless and singing? What can earth do to you, if you are guaranteed heaven? To fear the worst earthly loss would be like a millionaire fearing the loss of a penny โ less, a scratch on a penny.
Peter KreeftSlenderman can invoke memory loss in all but the most resolute - you could have already had a Slenderman encounter and not remember it.
Jack GoldsteinMiles was still mourning the loss of his Romantic Plan. 'There was going to be champagne, and oysters, and you' - he held out both hands as though shifting a piece of furniture - 'were going to be sitting there, and I was going to get down on one knee, and...and...
Lauren WilligIt can be tempting to blame others for our loss of direction. We get lots of information about life but little education in life from parents, teachers, and other authority figures who should know better from their experience. Information is about facts. Education is about wisdom and the knowledge of how to love and survive.
Bernie SiegelI got over the loss of his desk and chair, but never the desire to produce a string of words more precious than the emeralds of Cortรฉs.
Patti SmithIt is a strange anomaly that men could be careful to insure their houses, their ships, their merchandise, and yet neglect to insure their lives - surely the most important of all to their families, and more subject to loss.
Benjamin FranklinThe substance of the eminent Socialist gentlemen's speech is that making a profit is a sin. It is my belief that the real sin is taking a loss!
Winston ChurchillSo now I have sworn to bury All this dead body of hate I feel so free and so clear By the loss of that dead weight
Alfred Lord TennysonThere are stories that are true, in which each individual's tale is unique and tragic, and the worst of the tragedy is that we have heard it before, and we cannot allow ourselves to feel it to deeply. We build a shell around it like an oyster dealing with a painful particle of grit, coating it with smooth pearl layers in order to cope. This is how we walk and talk and function, day in, day out, immune to others' pain and loss. If it were to touch us it would cripple us or make saints of us; but, for the most part, it does not touch us. We cannot allow it to.
Neil GaimanThere's nothing left of my hometown in Kentucky. All those small and mid-sized towns and cities in the U.S. are just about malls around the edges and suburbs. That was definitely a loss, because everything just gets homogenized. You can't tell where you are, it's all the same.
Richard HellNever far from a dining table, the characters in Heather A. Slomski's limpid and elegant debut collection are not given to melodramatics. Civility reigns, voices are not raised, much goes unsaid. But just beneath the sophisticated composure are longing, loss, heartbreak. And how intensely familiar is the table itself, which made this reader suddenly understand how much of our real life takes place there. Heather A. Slomski is truly a fresh voice on the scene, and The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons is that rare thing, a new book as innovative in its design as it is compulsively readable.
Jaimy GordonTo be mistaken in believing that the Christian religion is true is no great loss to anyone; but how dreadful to be mistaken in believing it to be false!
Blaise PascalI 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 OndaatjeIf you are black, the only roads into the mainland of American life are through subservience, cowardice, and loss of manhood. These are the white man's roads.
Amiri BarakaThe Old Testament contains in many places, but especially in the book of Job, one of the most far-reaching defenses ever written of wilderness, of nature free from the hand of man. The argument gets at the heart of what the loss of nature will mean to us....God seems to be insisting that we are not the center of the universe, that he is quite happy if it rains where there are no people - that God is quite happy with places where there are no people, a radical departure from our most ingrained notions.
Bill McKibbenI could lecture on dry oak leaves; I could, but who would hear me? If I were to try it on any large audience, I fear it would be no gain to them, and a positive loss to me. I should have behaved rudely toward my rustling friends.
Henry David ThoreauIn tight economic times, with libraries sliding farther and farther down the list of priorities, we risk the loss of their ideals, intelligence, and knowledge, not to mention their commitment to access for allโlibrarians consider free access to information the foundation of democracy, and theyโre right. Librarians are essential players in the information revolution because they level that field. They enable those without money or education to read and learn the same things as the billionaire and the Ph.DโฆIn tough times, a librarian is a terrible thing to waste.
Marilyn JohnsonTwo aged men, that had been foes for life, Met by a grave, and wept - and in those tears They washed away the memory of their strife; Then wept again the loss of all those years.
Jean PaulAs you would expect, the loss of freedom and the lack of privacy are extremely difficult... I want you to know that I am well. I am safe, fit and healthy.
Martha StewartThe loss of memory isn't always the problem; sometimes--maybe even often--it's the solution.
Stephen KingAs I see our world, I have never seen greater confusion, greater loss of meaning, greater uncertainty, and greater fear of what looms in front of us. Politics has gotten out of control everywhere. Nobody sees a mascot or a leader, and everyone wants to know what really lies ahead here.
Ravi ZachariasWhen in the wondrous realms above Our Saviour had been called upon, To save our world of sin by love, He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done.' The Kings of kings left worlds of light, Became the meek and lowly one; In brightest day or darkest night He said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." No crown of thorns, no cruel cross Could make our great Redeemer shun. He counted his own will but loss, And said, "Thy will, O Lord, be done." We take the bread and cup this day, In memory of the Sinless One, And pray for strength, That we may say, As he, "Thy will, O Lord, be done."
Frank I. KooymanLosses have propelled me to even bigger places, so I understand the importance of losing. You can never get complacent because a loss is always around the corner. It's in any game that you're in - a business game or whatever - you can't get complacent.
Venus Williams