quotations about sorrow
To Sorrow I bade good-morrow,
And thought to leave her far away behind;
But cheerly, cheerly,
She loves me dearly;
She is so constant to me, and so kind:
I would deceive her
And so leave her,
But ah! she is so constant and so kind.
JOHN KEATS
Endymion
A person is full of sorrow
the way a burlap sack is full of stones or sand.
JANE HIRSHFIELD
"Burlap Sack"
Sorrow is a burden hanging heavily upon the lonely, but easily sustained by two sympathizing souls.
H. P. CURTIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The sorrow of the world is made up of as many different kinds as that carpet of green which covers the earth.
WILLIAM ARNOT
attributed, Day's Collacon
There are those who are awkward in the face of sorrow, fearing to say the wrong thing; to them, I say, there is no wrong comfort, ever. A kind word, a consoling arm ... these things are ever welcome.
JACQUELINE CAREY
Kushiel's Dart
sorrow is a skillful handiwork of death that keeps chasing us since our childhood days and giving in to it is like living a battered life.
ANNESHA CHATTERJEE
"Immortal forever", The Statesman, August 3, 2017
In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.
SOLOMON
Ecclesiastes 1:18
Sorrows are the spurs of life.
HENRY NEELE
attributed, Day's Collacon
To weep with them that weep doth ease some deal;
But sorrow flouted at is double death.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Titus Andronicus
Sorrow may be a good thing for a woman's heart, but it is a poor cosmetic for her face.
AUSTIN O'MALLEY
Keystones of Thought
Sorrow prepares you for joy. It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.
RUMI
attributed, What Matters: Reflections on Important Things in Life
Sorrows bring us closer to God than joys.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Proverbs from Plymouth Pulpit
The gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers.
HERMAN MELVILLE
Moby Dick
Though sore oppressed with worldly cares and strife,
I still return a smile unto my fate,
And feel amidst the trials which crown my life
A thankful sense for this my worldly state;
For had I all I wished, a wish were vain,
And I had for a gift no pleasure felt.
Nay, with a sorrow let the world remain,
For joy ne'er reigned where sorrow had not dwelt.
ANTHONY LISLE
The Westminster Review, January 1914
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
HENRY WADSWORTH LONGFELLOW
Evangeline
His sorrow is no less palpable for being cloaked in wry, withering observations.
KERRY REID
"Bold casting only part of what makes this 'Virginia Woolf' go", Chicago Tribune, August 9, 2017
A shared joy is a doubled joy and a shared sorrow is half a sorrow.
SWEDISH PROVERB
As high as we have mounted in delight
In our dejection do we sink as low.
WILLIAM WORDSWORTH
Resolution and Independence
There is a black river
It passes by my window
And late at night
All dolled up like Christ
I walk the water
Between the piers
Singing
Oh, river of sorrow
River of time, river
River of sorrow
Don't swallow this time
ANTONY AND THE JOHNSONS
"River of Sorrow"
One drop of sorrow heals the troubled heart
More than a thousand tongues of consolation.
ROBERT LEIGHTON
"At the Grave of Margaret"