quotations about tears
Hide thy tears--I do not bid thee not to shed them--'twere easier to stop the Euphrates at its source than one tear of a true and tender heart.
LORD BYRON
Sardanapalus
I sincerely believe our tears are the needle and thread that God gives us to do the mending in our lives.
LESLIE BAILEY
"I Love Life: Iowa Mom Reaches Out to Parents Suffering Loss Of Children", KSOO, June 6, 2017
I cannot weep; for all my body's moisture
Scarce serves to quench my furnace-burning heart.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Henry VI, Part III
'Tis the best brine a maiden can season her praise in.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
All's Well That Ends Well
Beauty of whatever kind, in its supreme development, invariably excites the sensitive soul to tears.
EDGAR ALLAN POE
"The Philosophy of Composition", The Works of Edgar Allan Poe
It is a grave injustice to a child or adult to insist that they stop crying. One can comfort a person who is crying which enables him to relax and makes further crying unnecessary; but to humiliate a crying child is to increase his pain, and augment his rigidity. We stop other people from crying because we cannot stand the sounds and movements of their bodies. It threatens our own rigidity. It induces similar feelings in ourselves which we dare not express and it evokes a resonance in our own bodies which we resist.
ALEXANDER LOWEN
The Voice of the Body
Don't ever discount the wonder of your tears. They can be healing waters and a stream of joy. Sometimes they are the best words the heart can speak.
WM. PAUL YOUNG
The Shack
I feel the proximity of laughter and tears ... they are right next to each other at our table of human responses to the challenges of living. Tears are sitting in one seat at the table, right next to tears is laughter and the distinction between the two is subtle. You might think you're sitting in the tears spot and a moment later you're cracking up and you realize you are in the next seat laughing. We are alternately serious and silly, sometimes at the same time, one eye laughing, one eye crying as we often say.
JAMES STONE GOODMAN
"On the suicide of celebrities", STL Jewish Light, May 25, 2017
Did he break into tears?
In great measure.
A kind overflow of kindness: there are no faces truer than those that are so washed.
WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
Much Ado About Nothing
But smiles and tears are so alike with me, they are neither of them confined to any particular feelings: I often cry when I am happy, and smile when I am sad.
ANNE BRONTË
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall
Oh! too convincing--dangerously dear--
In woman's eye the unanswerable tear!
That weapon of her weakness she can wield,
To save, subdue--at once her spear and shield.
LORD BYRON
Corsair
One cannot weep for the entire world. It is beyond human strength. One must choose.
JEAN ANOUILH
Cecile
Sometimes there are no words. Tears are the most eloquent.
JOHN MORRIS
"mum pays heartbreaking tribute at funeral of baby who died from suspected heatstroke", Irish Independent, June 17, 2017
Waste not fresh tears over old griefs.
EURIPIDES
fragment, Alexander
A tear that trembles for a little while
Upon the trembling eyelid, till the world
Wavers within its circle like a dream,
Holds more of meaning in its narrow orb
Than all the distant landscape that it blurs.
HENRY VAN DYKE
"Dulciora"
But woe awaits a country, when
She sees the tears of bearded men.
SIR WALTER SCOTT
Marmion
Are tears the best princess's washing water?
JEAN PAUL FRIEDRICH RICHTER
Levana; or, the Doctrine of Education
Crying is part of the adventure.
GAIL CARSON LEVINE
The Two Princesses of Bamarre
Thank God for grace,
Ye who weep only! If, as some have done,
Ye grope tear-blinded in a desert place
And touch but tombs,--look up! Those tears will run
Soon in long rivers down the lifted face,
And leave the vision clear for stars and sun.
ELIZABETH BARRETT BROWNING
Tears
Tears are almost always evidence of growth.
MICHAEL SEAN WINTERS
"Donald Trump's tears are good, but the US needs more", National Catholic Reporter, April 19, 2017