Grief Quotes To Help You Find Comfort After A Loss

Grief can be a lonely experience. When you’re grieving a loss, you may feel especially isolated—perhaps even as if no one can possibly understand what you’re going through. This sense of being alone in your experiences is called “existential isolation.” Existential isolation can be common during grief, but recognizing grief as a shared human experience may be a comfort.

Below, you’ll find a list of quotes on loss, grief, and healing from writers, philosophers, and other prominent figures. While reading quotes might not be a cure for grief, reflecting on these perspectives can be a reminder that others have had similar experiences and were able to find some kind of healing or peace. If you’re struggling to cope after a loss, working with a therapist may be another way to get the support you need. 

You are not alone on your grief journey

Get guidance through the grieving process

Quotes to describe grief

The American Psychological Association (APA) defines grief as “the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person.” Here are other ways grief has been described, some of which may resonate with you:

• “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.” –C.S. Lewis, A Grief Observed
• “There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” –Aeschylus
• “Grief is a house where the chairs have forgotten how to hold us, the mirrors how to reflect us, the walls how to contain us. Grief is love with no place to go.” –Jandy Nelson
• “You cannot die of grief, though it feels as if you can. A heart does not actually break, though sometimes your chest aches as if it is breaking.” –Laurell K. Hamilton
• “If you have ever lost someone very important to you, then you already know how it feels, and if you haven’t, you cannot possibly imagine it.” –Lemony Snicket, The Bad Beginning
• “Grief can’t be shared. Everyone carries it alone, his own burden, his own way.” –Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Dearly Beloved

Quotes about the shared experience of grief

Grief can feel isolating, but connecting with others who have had similar experiences can be comforting and connective. Joining a support group or spending time with others who are experiencing the same loss can be helpful. Here are some quotes about the shared experience of grief: 

• “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world—the company of those who have known suffering. When it seems that our sorrow is too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.” –Helen Keller
• “Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys.” –Alphonse de Lamartine

• “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, Eat, Pray, Love

Quotes about expressing your grief

Research suggests that avoiding your grief may actually prolong it. That’s why expressing your grief and letting yourself experience it fully can be important for the healing process. See these quotes about grief expression: 

• “Give the sorrow words; the grief that does not speak knits up the o’er-wrought heart and bids it break.” –William Shakespeare, Macbeth
• “I will not say: Do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.” –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Return of the King
• “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

“There is no grief like the grief that does not speak.” –Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

• “There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a 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
• “There are three needs of the griever: To find the words for the loss, to say the words aloud and to know that the words have been heard.” –Victoria Alexander
• “Tears are the silent language of grief.” –Voltaire

Quotes about the importance of grief

Though difficult, grief can be a powerfully transformative experience. You might find the following quotes from famous figures detailing what grief has meant to them inspirational or comforting:

• “Grief is not a disorder, a disease or a sign of weakness. It is an emotional, physical and spiritual necessity, the price you pay for love. The only cure for grief is to grieve.” –Earl Grollman
• “Grieving is a necessary passage and a difficult transition to finally letting go of sorrow—it is not a permanent rest stop.” –Dodinsky
• “Grief is the garden of compassion. When you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom.” –Rumi
• “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
• “Grief is the price of love. Loving someone means that one day, there will be grieving. They will leave you, or you will leave them. The more you love, the more you grieve. Loving someone also means grieving with them. It means letting their pain and loss bleed into your own heart. When you see that pain coming, you may want to throw up the guardrails, sound the alarm, raise the flag, but you must keep the borders of your heart porous in order to love well.” –Valarie Kaur, See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love

Quotes about moving forward from grief

Moving forward from grief doesn’t mean forgetting who or what you lost or pretending like it didn’t happen. Instead, it can be about making space in your life for the memory and the feelings. See how others put it:

• “I still miss those I loved who are no longer with me but I find I am grateful for having loved them. The gratitude has finally conquered the loss.” –Rita Mae Brown
• “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.” –Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
• “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

“We do not have to rely on memories to recapture the spirit of those we have loved and lost— they live within our souls in some perfect sanctuary which even death cannot destroy.” –Nan Witcomb

Beyond grief quotes: finding support while you’re grieving

These grief quotes for loved ones may be a source of comfort after a loss. However, quotes alone may not always be enough to help you through the grieving process. Although the most intense symptoms of grief usually last for a few months to a year, sometimes grief does not resolve on its own. Prolonged grief disorder, also known as “complicated grief,” can develop when symptoms of grief don’t improve with time and interfere with your daily life and functioning. 

If you’re struggling to come to terms with a loss, therapy may help. A licensed therapist may be able to support you through the grieving process, suggest healthy coping strategies, and help you manage any other mental health concerns that you may be having due to grief. Because grief therapy can be a highly personal and vulnerable experience, you’ll likely want to find a therapist you feel comfortable opening up to. Platforms like BetterHelp can make this process easier by matching you with a licensed therapist based on your needs. With online therapy, you can also change therapists at any time, for any reason, at no additional cost. 

Research indicates that online therapy may benefit people who are living with grief. For example, in a 2021 review, researchers analyzed nine studies on online grief interventions. Their findings suggest that internet-based treatments can have significant effects on reducing symptoms of grief, depression, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after loss.