Grief Quotes To Uplift Your Sadness

There is no right or wrong way to grieve, and it is not uncommon to experience both emotional and physical reactions to the loss. The process of grieving can be different for everyone, as can its duration. Although grief can make you feel vulnerable, know that you are not alone. There are support groups and professional counselors with training and experience helping people navigate the grieving process. 

In addition to seeking support through counseling or bereavement groups, you may find it helpful to read what others have to say about the grieving process. Below are some quotes from famous authors and others who wrote about their experiences with grief.

Quotes about grief and the grieving process

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing. At other times it feels like being mildly drunk, or concussed. There is a sort of invisible blanket between the world and me. I find it hard to take in what anyone says. Or perhaps, hard to want to take it in. It is so uninteresting. Yet I want the others to be about me. I dread the moments when the house is empty. If only they would talk to one another and not to me.” -C.S. Lewis

• “When the heart weeps for what it has lost, the soul laughs for what it has found.” - An old Sufi aphorism

• “We are healed of a suffering only by experiencing it to the full.” -Marcel Proust

• “What is there to do when people die, people so dear and rare, but bring them back by remembering.” -May Sarton

• "The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief—but the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love." -Hilary Stanton Zunin

• "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

• "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, Evermore

• "Grief I've learned is just love. It's all the love you want to give but cannot. All of 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." -Unknown

• "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

• "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

• "Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion to death." -Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

• "Those who have suffered understand suffering and therefore extend their hand." -Patti Smith

• "There are no happy endings. Endings are the saddest part, So just give me a happy middle And a very happy start." -Shel Silverstein, A Light in the Attic

• "Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated." -Alphonse de Lamartine, Méditations Poétiques

• "The darker the night, the brighter the stars, The deeper the grief, the closer is God!" -Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

• "It's the kind of heartache you can feel in your bones." -Unknown

• "Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind." -Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time

• "I think I'll miss you forever, like the stars miss the sun in the morning skies." -Unknown

• “Well, here at last, dear friends, on the shores of the Sea comes the end of our fellowship in Middle-earth. Go in peace! I will not say: do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” -J.R.R. Tolkien

• “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

• “Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone; his own burden in his own way.” -Anne Morrow Lindbergh

• “Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Neither the offender nor the offended are any more themselves.” -Blaise Pascal

• "Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal." -Richard Puz

• “Bereavement is a universal and integral part of our experience of love.” -C. S. Lewis

• "Grief is the price we pay for love." -Queen Elizabeth II

• "To weep is to make less the depth of grief." -William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II, Act II

• "While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it be digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it." -Samuel Johnson

• "Tears are the silent language of grief." -Voltaire

• "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard." -Winnie the Pooh

• "Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad." -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• "There is no grief like the grief that does not speak." -Henry Wordsworth Longfellow

• "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

Advice from grief quotes

Sometimes our source of light comes from unexpected places in times of loneliness and darkness. If you are in a season of grief, witnessing the experiences of other people's journeys—even in written form—can be helpful. Although your journey through grief may be unique, you may find solace in these inspiring quotes and words from great thinkers who have felt the way you feel now.

• "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, A Prayer for Owen Meany

Seeking help with grief

If you are experiencing symptoms of grief, it may help to speak with a licensed therapist who has experience helping people with the grieving process. In some cases, grief can progress into mental health concerns, such as depression and PTSD. According to Harvard Medical School, “Up to 50% of widows and widowers have depression symptoms during the first few months after a spouse's death. (By the one-year mark, the proportion is down to 10%.)” 

Online therapy for the grieving process

If feelings of grief make it difficult to leave home to see a therapist, you might consider online therapy. With online therapy, you can talk to a counselor from the comfort of your home in a way that’s most comfortable for you—via audio, video, or live chat. Some people report that talking to a therapist from a distance makes it easier for them to express what they’re experiencing.

Numerous peer-reviewed studies demonstrated the effectiveness of online therapy. One meta-analysis of 17 studies found that online therapy was more effective than in-person counseling at reducing symptoms of depression. 

If you’re having trouble managing the symptoms of your grief and it’s starting to affect your ability to function, you may find it helpful to speak with a licensed online counselor at BetterHelp.