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Grief never mended no broken bones.
CHARLES DICKENS, Sketches by Boz
There is this difference between the grief of youth and that of old age: youth's burden is lightened by as much of it as another shares; old age may give and give, but the sorrow remains the same.
O. HENRY, "The Count and the Wedding Guest"
The greatest griefs are those we cause ourselves.
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.
- Let grief distract the sufferer's breast,
- And night obscure his way;
- They hasten him to endless rest,
- And everlasting day.
EMILY BRONTE, A Day Dream
I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING, Sonnets
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
EURIPIDES, Alexander [fragment]
- Joys as winged dreams fly fast,
- Why should sadness longer last?
- Grief is but a wound to woe;
- Gentlest fair, mourn, mourn no moe.
JOHN FLETCHER, The Queen of Corinth
We postpone the finality of heartbreak by clinging to hope. Though this might be acceptable during early or transitional stages of grief, ultimately it is no way to live. We need both hands free to embrace life and accept love, and that's impossible if one hand has a death grip on the past.
KRISTIN ARMSTRONG, O Magazine, Feb. 2007
- Grief is fantastical, and loves the dead,
- And the apparel of the grave.
LORD BYRON, The Two Foscari
Grief is itself a med'cine.
Grief fades like a wrinkle on the wave.
PAUL FORT, "The Reeds Around the Pond"
Grief is a healthy emotion, and it's healthy to embrace it. By accepting loss, we clarify our values and the meaning of our lives.
It is the peculiar nature of the world to go on spinning no matter what sort of heartbreak is happening.
SUE MONK KIDD, The Secret Life of Bees
Small leisure have the poor for grief.
JOHN GREENLEAF WHITTIER, "The Witch's Daughter"
My grief was like a mountain that hid all of heaven from me.
MACRINA WIEDERKEHR, The Song of the Seed
Grief 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.
- Grief comes, a giantess, with strength to bind;
- She grips our hand and glares into our eyes;
- If we but kiss her mouth, she daily dies,
- Fades into air, and leaves a flower behind.
WILLIAM WILSEY MARTIN, "Grief"
What is called happiness is an abstract idea, composed of various ideas of pleasure; for he who has but a moment of pleasure is not a happy man, in like manner that a moment of grief constitutes not a miserable one.
VOLTAIRE, A Philosophical Dictionary
- Time ebbs, but Grief abides--
- Grim flotsam of Life's tides.
NELLIE SEELYA EVANS, "On the Shore"
Grief and guilt. A powerful combination. Guilt like a liquid, a thin liquor, seeping everywhere, informing everything, saturating the whole--corrosive, like seawater, scented with the rich stench of ordure and corruption, and carrying with it hard, abrasive shards of grief.
SIMON MAWER, The Gospel of Judas
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