Losing a loved one and having to move on with your life without them is one of the most painful experiences. Sadly, this is something we all have to go through at some point in our lives.
There is nothing you can do to prevent loss or change the past. But you must find a way to cope with it.
You must learn that grief and sadness are a part of life. That there is always hope, as far away as the light at the end of the tunnel might appear to be.
Most importantly: you have to understand that you will get better. Not today and probably not tomorrow, but one day, you will heal.
This is why these grief quotes are here: to teach you all of these things. Read them to understand that you’re not alone in your pain!
25 Inspirational Quotes About Grief
The following quotes will help you realize that you’re not alone in your suffering, even though it might seem that way right now. Everyone has experienced similar pain, and here is what some intelligent people had to say about it.
Once you read these quotes, you’ll get the impression that your best friend is talking to you – that’s how well each one of them will read your mind.
1. “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
2. “God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December.” — J.M. Barrie
3. “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal, and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again, but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
4. “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world — the company of those who have known suffering.” – Helen Keller
5. “Deep grief sometimes is almost like a specific location, a coordinate on a map of time. When you are standing in that forest of sorrow, you cannot imagine that you could ever find your way to a better place. But if someone can assure you that they themselves have stood in that same place and now have moved on, sometimes this will bring hope.” — Elizabeth Gilbert
6. “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
7. “And when people try to minimize your pain, they are doing you a disservice. And when you try to minimize your own pain, you’re doing yourself a disservice. Don’t do that. The truth is that it hurts because it’s real. It hurts because it mattered. And that’s an important thing to acknowledge to yourself. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t end, that it won’t get better. Because it will.” — John Green
8. “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.” — Leo Tolstoy
9. “Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face — I know it’s an impossibility, but I cannot help myself.” — Nicholas Sparks
10. “Well, everyone can master a grief but he that has it.” — William Shakespeare
11. “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly – that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” — Anne Lamott
12. “Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive.” — Haruki Murakami
13. “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o-er wrought heart and bids it break.” — William Shakespeare
14. “Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone; his own burden in his own way.” — Anne Morrow Lindbergh
15. “Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less, and one day, we wonder what has become of it.” — Arthur Golden
16. “It’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.” — Colette
17. “There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, ‘There now, hang on, you’ll get over it.’ Sadness is more or less like a head cold – with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer.” ― Barbara Kingsolver, The Bean Trees
18. ”See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first, it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day you look down and see how much pain has eroded.” ― Jodi Picoult
19. ”Grief can take care of itself, but to get the full value of a joy, you must have somebody to divide it with.” ― Mark Twain
20. “In times of grief and sorrow, I will hold you and rock you and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry, I cry, and when you hurt, I hurt. And together, we will try to hold back the floods to tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life.” — Nicholas Sparks
21. “When it is darkest, we can see the stars.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson
22. “There are no happy endings; endings are the saddest part. So just give me a happy middle, and a very happy start.” — Shel Silverstein
23. “Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself.” ― Leigh Bardugo, King of Scars
24. “Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life.” ― Maria V. Snyder, Storm Glass
25. “The trauma said, ‘Don’t write these poems. Nobody wants to hear you cry about the grief inside your bones.’” ― Andrea Gibson, The Madness Vase
15 Motivational Quotes On Grief
When you’re grieving, you need someone to tell you that there is a point behind your pain. Most importantly: you need someone to promise you that someday, you’ll be okay. These quotes will do exactly that:
1. “I don’t think of all the misery but of all the beauty that remains.” ― Anne Frank
2. “Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people.” ― Orson Scott Card, Shadow of the Giant
3. “As far as you can avoid it, do not give grief to anyone. Never inflict your rage on another. If you hope for eternal rest, feel the pain yourself; but don’t hurt others.” ― Omar Khayyám, Quatrains
4. “Grief is so human, and it hits everyone at one point or another, at least, in their lives. If you love, you will grieve, and that’s just given.” ― Kay Redfield Jamison
5. ”Grief is the last act of love we can give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love.” ― Unknown
6. “Fire tests gold. Suffering tests brave men.” ― Seneca
7. “Tears are the silent language of grief.” ― Voltaire
8. ”Some things in life cannot be fixed. They can only be carried.” ― Megan Devine
9. “Never let the salt of your tears be tasteless in grief.” ― Munia Khan
10. “I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures…We tell the story to get them back, to capture the traces of footfalls through the snow.” ― Gail Caldwell, Let’s Take the Long Way Home: A Memoir of Friendship
11. “We remember shooting stars for their shine, not the darkness of the night. Trying to wish away grief, extinguishes those memories that glow so bright.” ― Julie Abe, Eva Evergreen, Semi-Magical Witch
12. “When grief overtakes us, we lose all interest, reason, and sense of belongingness. But it is equally true that life doesn’t stop.” ― Sushant Changotra, I Know You Now
13. “Never compare your grief. You – and only you walk your path.” ― Nathalie Himmelrich, Grieving Parents: Surviving Loss as a Couple
14. “Grief, I’ve learned, is really just love. It’s all the love you want to give but cannot. All that unspent love gathers up in the corners of your eyes, the lump in your throat, and in that hollow part of your chest. Grief is just love with no place to go.” ― Jamie Anderson
15. “Grief is a step towards strength because it allows you to be porous and take everything in and have it transform you. What will sit within you is despairing, but at least, it’s feeling. You’re not numb. Grief is sort of the allowance of feeling.” ― Carrie Brownstein
15 Healing Grief Quotes
While you’re surrounded by sadness, you’re in an abyss. For you, healing seems like an task. Well, the following quotes will change your mind:
1. “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” — Rumi
2. “Grief can be a burden but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place.” — Sarah Dessen
3. “You will survive, and you will find purpose in the chaos. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go.” — Mary VanHaute
4. “They say time heals all wounds, but that presumes the source of the grief is finite” ― Cassandra Clare, Clockwork Prince
5. “And 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
6. “Healing from trauma is not an intellectual exercise. You cannot simply think your way out of it. Your healing requires your full participation: spirit, heart, mind, and body.” ― Thema Bryant-Davis
7. “It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’ I do not agree. The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue, and the pain lessens. But it is never gone.” ― Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy
8. “But pain’s like water. It finds a way to push through any seal. There’s no way to stop it. Sometimes you have to let yourself sink inside of it before you can learn how to swim to the surface.” ― Katie Kacvinsky
9. “History dressed up in the glow of love’s kiss turned grief into beauty.” ― Aberjhani, The River of Winged Dreams
10. “Emotional pain cannot kill you, but running from it can. Allow. Embrace. Let yourself feel. Let yourself heal.” ― Vironika Tugaleva
11. “We heal up through being loved and through loving others. We don’t heal by forming a secret society of one – by assessing about the only other ‘one’ we might admit, and being doomed to disappointment.” ― Jeanette Winterson, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?
12. “Before you heal someone, ask him if he’s willing to give up the things that made him sick.” ― Hippocrates
13. “You must let the pain visit. You must allow it to teach you. You must not allow it overstay.” ― Ijeoma Umebinyuo
14. “Holding onto an experience we had in the past is like dragging a corpse around.” ― Joseph Goldstein
15. ”It’s not all about healing yourself; it’s just as importantly about letting yourself heal.” ― Terri Guillemets
10 Uplifting Comfort Grief Quotes
I know you feel like you’re at the bottom. Nevertheless, if you read on, you’ll see that you actually have the strength to rise from the ashes.
1. “Sad hurts, but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different.” ― J.K. Rowling
2. “I will not say: Do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” ― J.R.R. Tolkien
3. “Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart.” — Jose N. Harris
4. “The only people who think there’s a time limit for grief have never lost a piece of their heart” — Unknown
5. “Tears have a wisdom all their own. They come when a person has relaxed enough to let go and work through his sorrow. They are the natural bleeding of an emotional wound, carrying the poison out of the system. Here lies the road to recovery.” — F. Alexander Magoun
6. “The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God!” — Fyodor Dostoevsky
7. “It amazes me what humans can do, even when streams are flowing down their faces, and they stagger on, coughing and searching, and finding.” ― Markus Zusak, The Book Thief
8. “She heard him mutter, ‘Can you take away this grief?’
‘I’m sorry,’ she replied. ‘Everyone asks me. And I would not do so even if I knew how. It belongs to you. Only time and tears take away grief; that is what they are for.” ― Terry Pratchett, I Shall Wear Midnight
9. “The good news: it is possible to use suffering as a call for wider awakening in the world.” ― Eckhart Tolle
10. “Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.” ― William Faulkner
15 Loss And Grief Quotes
Managing grief and loss the right way is one of the most difficult things in life. Sadly, we all have to face this grieving process sooner or later.
When you miss someone in heaven, that’s a whole different type of heartbreak.
1. “And when great souls die, after a period, peace blooms, slowly and always irregularly. Spaces fill with a kind of soothing electric vibration. Our senses, restored, never to be the same, whisper to us. They existed. We can be. Be and be better. For they existed.” — Maya Angelou
2. “Some people, they can’t just move on, you know, mourn and cry and be done with it. Or at least seem to be. But for me… I don’t know. I didn’t want to fix it, to forget. It wasn’t something that was broken. It’s just…something that happened. And like that hole, I’m just finding ways, every day, of working around it. Respecting and remembering and getting on at the same time.” ― Sarah Dessen
3. “If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart. I’ll stay there forever.” — A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
4. “When someone you love dies, and you’re not expecting it, you don’t lose her all at once; you lose her in pieces over a long time — the way the mail stops coming, and her scent fades from the pillows and even from the clothes in her closet and drawers. Gradually, you accumulate the parts of her that are gone. Just when the day comes — when there’s a particular missing part that overwhelms you with the feeling that she’s gone, forever — there comes another day, and another specifically missing part.” — John Irving
5. “Now, there is one thing I can tell you: You will enjoy certain pleasures you would not fathom now. When you still had your mother, you often thought of the days when you would have her no longer. Now you will often think of days past when you had her. When you are used to this horrible thing that they will forever be cast into the past, then you will gently feel her revive, returning to take her place, her entire place, beside you. At the present time, this is not yet possible. Let yourself be inert; wait till the incomprehensible power … that has broken you restores you a little. I say a little, for henceforth, you will always keep something broken about you. Tell yourself this, too, for it is a kind of pleasure to know that you will never love less, that you will never be consoled, that you will constantly remember more and more.” — Marcel Proust
6. “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.” — Thomas Campbell
7. “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” — Washington Irving
8. ”Grief is like the ocean; it comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.” — Vicki Harrison
9. “Do not stand at my grave and weep,
I am not there, I do not sleep.
I am in a thousand winds that blow,
I am the softly falling snow.
I am the gentle showers of rain,
I am the fields of ripening grain.
I am in the morning hush,
I am in the graceful rush
Of beautiful birds in circling flight,
I am the starshine of the night.
I am in the flowers that bloom,
I am in a quiet room.
I am in the birds that sing,
I am in each lovely thing.
Do not stand at my grave bereft
I am not there. I have not left.”
― Mary Elizabeth Frye
10. “The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love.” ― Kristina McMorris, Bridge of Scarlet Leaves
11. “You attend the funeral. You bid the dead farewell. You grieve. Then you continue with your life. And at times, the fact of her absence will hit you like a blow to the chest, and you will weep. But this will happen less and less as time goes on. She is dead. You are alive. So live.” ― Neil Gaiman, Fables & Reflections
12. “I think perhaps I will always hold a candle for you – even until it burns my hand.
And when the light has long since gone … I will be there in the darkness holding what remains, quite simply because I cannot let go.” ― Ranata Suzuki
13. “See, as much as you want to hold on to the bitter sore memory that someone has left this world, you are still in it. And the very act of living is a tide: at first, it seems to make no difference at all, and then one day, you look down and see how much pain has eroded.” ― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper
14. “When someone is mourning, there is absolutely nothing you could say to alleviate their pain.
Just sit with them, hold their hands, and be present and compassionate.” ― Anoir Ou-Chad
15. “I was scared of living a life not worth the living. Why did I deserve to live when my sister had died? I was responsible now for two lives, my sister’s and my own, and, damn, I’d better live well.” ― Nina Sankovitch, Tolstoy and the Purple Chair: My Year of Magical Reading
15 Missing You Grief Quotes
They say that missing someone is probably the strongest feeling out there. It consumes and overwhelms you to the point where it becomes the only thing you can think about.
Here are some inspirational lines about the desperation you’re going through.
1. ”I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone – you just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.” ― Alyson Noel
2. ”I miss you. A little too much, a little too often, and a little bit more every day.” ― Unknown
3. ”No matter how long it’s been, there are times when it suddenly becomes harder to breathe.” ― Unknown
4. “When you miss your loved one, remember the beautiful moments you’ve had with them. And when your heart swells, cuddle your pillow and let your tears soothe the pain.” ― Anoir Ou-Chad
5. “I miss you in ways that not even words can understand.” ― Gemma Tray
6. “In French, you don’t really say ‘I miss you,’ you say ‘Tu me manques,’ which means ‘You are missing from me.’” ― Unknown
7. “I miss you a little, I guess you could say, a little too much, a little too often, and a little more each day.” ― Unknown
8. “Missing someone is a part of loving them. If you’re never apart, you’ll never really know how strong your love is.” ― Unknown
9. “I have late-night conversations with the moon. He tells me about the sun, and I tell him about you.” ― S.L. Gray
10. “You can love someone so much…But you can never love people as much as you can miss them.” — John Green
11. “That’s the worst way to miss somebody. When they’re right beside you, and you miss them anyway.” ― Pittacus Lore, I Am Number Four
12. “You’re everywhere, except right here, and it hurts.” ― Rupi Kaur
13. “I miss you in waves, and tonight, I’m drowning.” ― Denice Envall
14. “Sometimes, when one person is missing, the whole world seems depopulated.” ― Lamartine
15. “The air I breathe in a room empty of you is unhealthy.” ― John Keats
What To Say To Someone Who Is Grieving Quotes
Saying condolences is never easy. You stand there, in front of the person whose world has just collapsed, and you’re trying to find a way to comfort them.
Mission impossible, you must think. How could your words possibly take away their pain?
Well, the truth is that nothing you say will magically wipe their hurt away. But that’s not the point. Your intention is just to show them that you understand and that they can count on you.
Here are the best ways to say it:
1. I’m terribly sorry to hear about your loss, and I express my sincere sympathy to you and your family.
2. I want you to know that you’re in my thoughts, prayers, and well-wishes during this dark time in your life.
3. May God put them in a special place where they will be watching us, the people who loved and cherished them!
4. I’m aware that I can’t understand what you’re going through at this moment, but I would like to offer my prayers and condolences.
5. When you lose a loved one here on earth, you gain an angel in heaven that watches over you. My most sincere condolences to you.
What Are The 5 Grief Stages
As you might know, grief doesn’t just come and go. Instead, there are 5 stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
Denial
This is your brain’s defense mechanism. You’re in shock, and the only way to cope with your loss is to deny it.
Basically, you’re a walking mess, and your entire life is chaos.
You don’t have the strength to accept what has happened, so you subconsciously choose to ignore it because facing the truth would be too much for you to handle.
This is a perfectly natural part of the grieving process. Nevertheless, the problem arises if this stage lasts too long. Sooner or later, you’ll have to face reality since it’s the only path towards healing.
Anger
Let me reveal a little secret: anger is just a mask. You’re still not brave enough to embrace the sadness you’re actually feeling, so you try to replace it with anger.
You’re angry at the person leaving you (yes, even if they’re in heaven – it doesn’t make much sense, I know), at yourself for not keeping them by your side, at life circumstances, at God…
You’re looking for someone or something to blame for everything that has happened. Why? Because you’re looking for a reason.
Once you accept that things were just meant to happen that way and that nobody is guilty, you’re ready for the next stage.
Bargaining
When you see that you’re losing someone, you’re ready to do whatever it takes just to keep them around. But now is too late for that kind of bargaining.
Nevertheless, at this stage, you turn to “what ifs.” You think of different case scenarios and of things you could have done better.
If we’re talking about grieving over someone who’s in heaven, you probably blame yourself for not reacting sooner. What if you made them go to the doctor sooner? What if they tried alternative medicine?
Depression
Even though depression is extremely difficult, it’s one step towards healing. You’re slowly becoming aware of your loss. And that realization hurts like hell.
At this point, you feel like your life has lost all of its meaning and as if your world is falling apart. You’re empty, and you can’t see the light at the end of the tunnel.
Acceptance
I’ll be completely honest here. Just because you accept your loss doesn’t mean that you magically get over it.
Simply put, you learn how to live with it. You embrace your sadness and realize it’s all a part of life.
The Only Cure For Grief Is To Grieve
I don’t expect these grief quotes to heal you the moment you read them. What I want is for you to realize that the grieving process is natural and that the worst thing you can do is run away from it.
Take all the time you need, and don’t let anyone tell you how to grieve.
One last tip: don’t forget that you’re allowed to be happy. Rebuilding your life doesn’t mean that you’ve forgotten about your loss!