Grief Quotes | Beyond Motive

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Grief Quotes

"Grief is a process, not a state."

Anne Grant, Scottish Poet

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"Can I see another's woe, and not be in sorrow too? Can I see another's grief, and not seek for kind relief?"

William Blake, English Poet

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"Nothing becomes so offensive so quickly as grief. When fresh it finds someone to console it, but when it becomes chronic, it is ridiculed, and rightly."

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Statesman

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"It is foolish to tear one's hair in grief, as though sorrow would be made less by baldness."

Marcus Tullius Cicero, Roman Statesman

Grief, Hair, Sorrow

"The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal - every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open - this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude."

Washington Irving, American Writer

Grief, Affliction, Duty, Open, Solitude

"Grief is perhaps an unknown territory for you. You might feel both helpless and hopeless without a sense of a "map" for the journey. Confusion is the hallmark of a transition. To rebuild both your inner and outer world is a major project."

Anne Grant, Scottish Poet

Grief, Confusion, Journey, Project

"Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself."

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, Roman Statesman

"Striving to tell his woes, words would not come; For light cares speak, when mighty griefs are dumb."

Samuel Daniel, English Poet

Grief, Dumb, Light, Words

"The king died and then the queen died is a story. The king died, and then queen died of grief is a plot."

E. M. Forster, English Novelist

"Where grief is fresh, any attempt to divert it only irritates."

Samuel Johnson, English Author

"There is no grief like the grief that does not speak."

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, American Poet

"There is a kind of euphoria of grief, a degree of madness."

Nigella Lawson, British Journalist

"Tearless grief bleeds inwardly."

Christian Nestell Bovee, American Author

"Grief, and an estate, is joy understood."

Gregory Nunn, American Athlete

"Grief changes shape, but it never ends."

Keanu Reeves, Canadian Actor

"Grief walks upon the heels of pleasure; married in haste, we repent at leisure."

William Congreve, English Poet

Grief, Haste, Leisure, Pleasure

"The natural effect of sorrow over the dead is to refine and elevate the mind."

Washington Irving, American Writer

Grief, Effect, Mind, Sorrow

"When Michael died I was tipped over the edge. I was beyond grief."

Paula Yates, Welsh Entertainer

"Tears are the silent language of grief."

Voltaire, French Writer

Grief, Language, Tears

"I picked up the writing on the very day he died. It was the only consolation I could find."

Wilfrid Sheed, English Novelist

Grief, Day, Writing

"For pleasures past I do not grieve, nor perils gathering near; My greatest grief is that I leave nothing that claims a tear."

Lord Byron, British Poet

Grief, Nothing, Past

"One often calms one's grief by recounting it."

Pierre Corneille, French Dramatist

"Pity speaks to grief More sweetly than a band of instruments."

Barry Cornwall, English Poet

"Joy comes, grief goes, we know not how."

James Russell Lowell, American Poet

"Touch'd either the Passions of Rage or Grief to a Miracle."

Barton Booth, English Actor

"ABBA: The Movie; I got a lot of grief for working on that."

Lasse Hallstrom, Swedish Director

"If you suppress grief too much, it can well redouble."

Moliere, French Playwright

"I feel like the writer observing the grief, but it is difficult to be detached from it."

Hugh Leonard, Irish Dramatist

"Not in sorrow freely is never to open the bosom to the sweets of the sunshine."

William Gilmore Simms, American Novelist

Grief, Open, Sorrow

"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief."

Aeschylus, Greek Poet

Grief, Joy, Memory, Pain

"We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin."

Mary Astell, English Writer

Grief, May, Pain, Sin

"Grief is only the memory of widowed affections."

James Martineau, English Philosopher

"What is deservedly suffered must be borne with calmness, but when the pain is unmerited, the grief is resistless."

Ovid, Roman Poet

"Since grief only aggravates your loss, grieve not for what is past."

Walker Percy, American Writer

Grief, Loss, Past

"To touch a sore is to renew one's grief."

Terence, Roman Writer

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