quotations about grief
Grief teaches the steadiest minds to waver.
SOPHOCLES
Antigone
We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, 'Blessed are they that mourn,' and I accept it. I've got nothing that I hadn't bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.
C. S. LEWIS
A Grief Observed
I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.
J. R. R. TOLKIEN
The Return of the King
For wherein is life sweet to him who suffers grief?
AESCHYLUS
fragment, Hoplon Krisis
Receding from grief, it seems necessary to retrace the same steps that brought us there.
F. SCOTT FITZGERALD
Tender Is the Night
There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays.
JODI PICOULT
My Sister's Keeper
It's better to keep grief inside. Grief inside works like bees or ants, building curious and perfect structures, complicating you. Grief outside means you want something from someone, and chances are good you won't get it.
HILARY THAYER HAMANN
Anthropology of an American Girl
Excess of grief for the deceased is madness; for it is an injury to the living, and the dead know it not.
XENOPHON
attributed, Day's Collacon
Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.
RUMI
attributed, The Philosophy Book
Grief is like the wake behind a boat. It starts out as a huge wave that follows close behind you and is big enough to swamp and drown you if you suddenly stop moving forward. But if you do keep moving, the big wake will eventually dissipate. And after a long time, the waters of your life get calm again, and that is when the memories of those who have left begin to shine as bright and as enduring as the stars above.
JIMMY BUFFETT
A Salty Piece of Land
Grief does not change you.... It reveals you.
JOHN GREEN
The Fault in Our Stars
It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as if grief could be lessened by baldness.
CICERO
Tusculan Disputations
Perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed.
SARAH WATERS
The Little Stranger
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
It is better to drink of deep griefs than to taste shallow pleasures.
WILLIAM HAZLITT
Characteristics
Unhappiness is selfish, grief is selfish. For whom are the tears?
JEANETTE WINTERSON
Written on the Body
Patch grief with proverbs; make misfortune drunk
With candle-wafters; bring him yet to me,
And I of him will gather patience.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
Grief--unlike sex, music, and cheating at cards--was not a skill that could be honed by practice.
TIM PRATT
Cup and Table
All the joys of earth will not assuage our thirst for happiness, while a single grief suffices to shroud life in a sombre veil, and smite it with nothingness at all points.
MADAME SWETCHINE
"Airelles,", The Writings of Madame Swetchine
Love is an engraved invitation to grief.
SUNSHINE O'DONNELL
Open Me