100+ Inspirational Quotes on the Death of a Loved One: Comfort and Hope in Grief

"The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not get over the loss of a loved one; you’ll learn to live with it."

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o'er-fraught heart and bids it break."

- William Shakespeare

"Tears have a wisdom all their own. They come when a person has relaxed enough to let go and to work through his sorrow. They are the natural bleeding of an emotional wound, carrying the poison out of the system. Here lies the road to recovery."

- F. Alexander Magoun

"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. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same, nor would you want to."

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"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

"Grief is the price we pay for love."

- Queen Elizabeth II

"Grief is a normal and natural response to loss. It is originally an unlearned feeling process. It is a reaction to change: life-altering change. Those who grieve are not weak; they are strong people with an overabundance of sensitivity and humanity in facing an overwhelming situation."

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"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

"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

"The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living."

- Marcus Tullius Cicero

"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

"We must know the pain of loss; because if we never knew it, we would have no compassion for others, and we would become monsters of self-regard, creatures of unalloyed self-interest. The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one."

- Dean Koontz 'The Darkest Evening Of The Year'

"There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rule book that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays."

- Jodi Picoult

"Say not in grief 'he is no more' but live in thankfulness that he was."

- Hebrew Proverb

"Grieving is a necessary passage and a difficult transition to finally letting go of sorrow - it is not a permanent rest stop."

- Dodinsky

"When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight."

- Kahlil Gibran

"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

"Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality."

- Emily Dickinson

"Happiness is beneficial for the body, but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind."

- Marcel Proust

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

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

"Grief can't be shared. Everyone carries it alone; his own burden in his own way."

- Anne Morrow Lindbergh

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal."

- From a headstone in Ireland

"Unable are the loved to die for love is immortality."

- Emily Dickinson

"Grief is like a moving river, it's always changing. I would say in some ways it just gets worse. It's just that the more time that passes, the more you miss someone."

- Michelle Williams

"Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds than happiness ever can; and common sufferings are far stronger links than common joys."

- Alphonse de Lamartine

"What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

- Helen Keller

"What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."

- Helen Keller

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."

- Dr. Seuss

"There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart."

- Mahatma Gandhi

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. The death of a beloved is an amputation."

- C.S. Eliot

"The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief - But the pain of grief isonly a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love."

- Hillary Stanton Zunin

"I don't know why they call it heartbreak. It feels like every part of my body is broken too."

- Chloe Woodward

"Grief is itself a medicine."

- William Cowper

"No one ever told me that grief felt so much like fear."

- C.S. Lewis

"Nothing that grieves us can be called little; by the external laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size."

- Mark Twain, 'Which Was The Dream?'

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

- Aeschylus

"Tears are the silent language of grief."

- Voltaire

"Given a choice between grief and nothing, I'd choose grief."

- William Faulkner

"Grief changes shape, but it never ends."

- Keanu Reeves

"If you've got to my age, you've probably had your heart broken many times. So it's not that difficult to unpack a bit of grief from some little corner of your heart and cry over it."

- Emma Thompson

"You don't go around grieving all the time, but the grief is still there and always will be."

- Nigella Lawson

"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

"In times of grief and sorrow I will hold you and rock you and take your grief and make it my own. When you cry I cry and when you hurt I hurt. And together we will try to hold back the floods of tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life."

- Nicholas Sparks, "The Notebook"

"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

"The grave itself is but a covered bridge, Leading from light to light, through a brief darkness!"

- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 'The Golden Legend'

"Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart."

- Eleanor Roosevelt

"The connections we make in the course of life—maybe that’s what heaven is."

- Fred Rogers

"How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."

- A. A. Milne

"They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies."

- William Penn

"Every life is noted and is cherished, and nothing loved is ever lost or perished."

- Madeleine L'Engle

"The comfort of having a friend may be taken away but not that of having had one."

- Seneca

"Wherever a beautiful soul has been, there is a trail of beautiful memories."

- Ronald Reagan

"You are gone, but thank you for all these soft, sweet things you left behind. In my home, in my head, in my heart."

- Nikita Gill

"Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything."

- C.S. Lewis

"Say not in grief that she is no more, but say in thankfulness that she was. A death is not the extinguishing of a light but the putting out of the lamp because the dawn has come."

- Rabindranath Tagore

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my own garden forever."

- Alfred Jennyon

"All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother."

- Abraham Lincoln

"Only a moment you stayed but what an imprint your footprints have left on our hearts."

- Dorothy Ferguson

"Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever."

- J.K. Rowling

"There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible—a wound that will never quite heal."

- Susan Wiggs

"To lose a friend is the greatest of all losses."

- Cicero

"Though nothing can bring back the hour, Of splendour in the grass, of glory in the flower, We will grieve not, rather find, Strength in what remains behind."

- William Wordsworth

"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live."

- Norman Cousins

"Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because dawn has come."

- Rabindranath Tagore

"He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die."

- Thomas Campbell

"There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning."

- Thornton Wilder

"Perhaps they are not stars, but openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

- The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it."

- Haruki Murakami

"Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time... It says, 'Now is the time to do what you will.'"

- Leo Buscaglia

"Grief does not change you, it reveals you."

- John Green

"In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing."

- Robert G. Ingersoll

"When he shall die, take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will fall in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun."

- William Shakespeare

"Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, Love leaves a memory no one can steal."

- Irish proverb

"The best and most beautiful things in this world cannot be seen or even heard, but must be felt with the heart."

- Helen Keller

"Nobody ever gets over losses like that. It's just part of your broken heart forever."

- Cheryl Strayed

"Say not in grief that they are gone, but give thanks that they were yours."

- Hebrew Proverb

"Don't be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends."

- Richard Bach

"Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer a great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them."

- Leo Tolstoy

"All you need is one safe anchor to keep you grounded when the rest of your life spins out of control."

- Katie Kacvinsky

"There is no death, only a change of worlds."

- Chief Seattle

"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."

- Zelda Fitzgerald

"Do not stand at my grave and weep; I am not there. I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow. I am the diamond glints on snow."

- Mary Elizabeth Frye

"Life is not the way it is supposed to be. It is the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference."

- Virginia Satir

"The melody that the loved one played upon the piano of your life will never be played quite that way again, but we must not close the keyboard and allow the instrument to gather dust. We must seek out other artists of the spirit, new friends who gradually will help us to find the road to life again, who will walk the road with us."

- Joshua Loth Liebman

"Our grief is as individual as our lives."

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

"Let no one weep for me, or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men."

- Quintus Ennius

"Tears are sometimes an inappropriate response to death. When a life has been lived completely honestly, completely successfully, or just completely, the correct response to death's perfect punctuation mark is a smile."

- Julie Burchill

"You can clutch the past so tightly to your chest that it leaves your arms too full to embrace the present."

- Jan Glidewell

"As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us. As long as I can I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, I will pray to the stars, for both of us."

- Sasha

"I'm gone now, but I'm still very near, death can never separate us. Each time you feel a gentle breeze, it's my hand caressing your face. Each time the wind blows, it carries my voice whispering your name. When the wind blows your hair ever so slightly, think of it as me pushing a few stray hairs back in place. When you feel a few raindrops fall on your face, it's me placing soft kisses. At night look up in the sky and see the stars shining so brightly. I'm one of those stars and I'm winking at you and smiling with delight. For never forget, you're the apple of my eye."

- Mary M Green

"We get no choice. If we love, we grieve."

- Thomas Lynch

"Everything that has a beginning has an ending. Make your peace with that and all will be well."

- Buddhist saying

"We need never be afraid of our tears."

- Charles Dickens

"I will welcome happiness for it enlarges my heart; Yet I will endure sadness for it opens my soul. I will acknowledge rewards for they are my due; Yet I will welcome obstacles for they are my challenge."

- Og Mandino

"Some people come in your life as blessings. Some come in your life as lessons."

- Mother Teresa

"The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart."

- Helen Keller

"People touch our lives if only for a moment, And yet we're not the same from that moment on, The time is not important, The moment is forever."

- Fern Bork

"Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch."

- Jack Thorne

"If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them."

- James O'Barr

"There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love."

- Washington Irving

"If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever."

- A.A. Milne

"If you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words they’re gone. They’ll come back."

- Prince

"Remembering is an act of resurrection, each repetition a vital layer of mourning, in memory of those we are sure to meet again."

- Nancy Cobb

"To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead."

- Samuel Butler

"Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity."

- Terri Guillemets

"Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

"As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-used brings happy death."

- Leonardo da Vinci

"The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time."

- Mark Twain

"After you have wept and grieved for your physical losses, cherish the functions and life you have left."

- Morrie Schwartz

"We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey."

- Kenji Miyazawa

"Those things that hurt instruct."

- Benjamin Franklin

"Time heals griefs and quarrels, for we change and are no longer the same persons. Whenever you long for your former lover, think of what you really wanted. The one recollection will suffice you—you want nothing from him but to love again."

- Blaise Pascal

"Forgiveness is healing ... especially forgiving yourself."

- Alyson Noel 'Evermore'

"Death —the last sleep? No, it is the final awakening."

- Walter Scott

"The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That's the way life is."

- Hugh Laurie

"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

"No matter how much suffering you went through, you never wanted to let go of those memories."

- Haruki Murakami

"You cannot prevent the birds of sorrow from flying over your head, but you can prevent them from building nests in your hair."

- Chinese Proverb

"Those who have passed are never far. They remain in our hearts and watch over us always."

- Danielle Steel

"There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in times of misery."

- Aeschylus

"There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out."

- Lou Reed, 'Magic And Loss'

"If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever."

- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

"What is lovely never dies. But passes into other loveliness."

- Thomas Bailey Aldrich

"Absence is to love as wind is to fire; it fans the flame, it extinguishes the lamp."

- Antoine Rivarol

"Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives."

- Alan Sachs

"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

"These days grief seems like walking on a frozen river; most of the time he feels safe enough, but there is always that danger he will plunge through."

- David Nicholls 'One Day'

"Every man's life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another."

- Ernest Hemingway

"Death may be the greatest of all human blessings."

- Socrates

"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

"Memory is a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."

- from The Wonder Years

"Don't grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form."

- Rumi

"The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and for deeds left undone."

- Harriet Beecher Stowe

"Without you in my arms, I feel an emptiness in my soul. I find myself searching the crowds for your face - I know it's an impossibility, but I cannot help myself."

- Nicholas Sparks 'Message In A Bottle'

"Absence is to love what wind is to fire; it extinguishes the small, it enkindles the great."

- Roger de Rabutin

"So long as men can breathe or eyes can see, So long lives this, and this gives life to thee."

- William Shakespeare

"The boundaries which divide Life from Death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends, and where the other begins?"

- Edgar Allan Poe

"There is no friend like an old friend who has shared our morning days, no greeting like his welcome, no homage like his praise."

- Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr.

"I am prepared to meet my Maker. Whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter."

- Winston Churchill

"It is not length of life, but depth of life."

- Ralph Waldo Emerson

"Death departing from men receives the greatest praise for vanquishing them; but when he stays long with them, they blame him because he did not go sooner."

- Sophocles

"A friend is someone who knows all about you and still loves you."

- Elbert Hubbard

"What is essential is invisible to the eye."

- Antoine de Saint-Exupéry

"Death is only a horizon. And a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."

- Richard Dehmel

"It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew."

- Henry Rollins

"The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings."

- Eric Hoffer

"The body is only a garment. How many times you have changed your clothing in this life, yet because of this you would not say that you have changed."

- Peace Pilgrim

"The song is ended but the melody lingers on…"

- Irving Berlin

"If tears could build a stairway,and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to Heaven and bring you home again."

- Author Unknown

"Although it's difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, May looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow."

- Author Unknown

"Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy."

- Anonymous

"Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day."

- Anonymous

"Those we have held in our arms for a little while, we hold in our hearts forever."

- Unknown

"There are in every person's life certain sorrows, losses, and disappointments which they must never surrender too. These unreturned loves, these bad breaks and wrong turns, these defeats—the heartbreaks that we all incur—make for the richness of our lives."

- Unknown

"When you lose someone you love, you gain an angel you know."

- Unknown

"Grief is a journey that leaves us changed forever. So don't run from it or hide from it. Embrace it and let it change you."

- Unknown

"The world changes from year to year, our lives from day to day, but the love and memory of you, shall never pass away."

"We have known each other from time everlasting. You were a friend before life began. We shall know one another again in heaven."

- Unknown

"When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure."

"From chambers dark to halls of light I wing my joyous flight."

"Weary no more. Come rest in our divine embrace."

"Angel hosts resplendent come to guide me home through heaven’s open door."

"I'll never forget how much I loved you, or the way you make me feel, but I have to move on with my life."

- Unknown

"I think of you with love every day."

- Unknown

"I take my place among the shining ranks made free by grace."

"Heaven’s portal opens wide; now spirit bathed in light abides."

"Ecstatic freedom now I breathe; no more earth’s fettered slave."

"Dawn’s early light reveals my soul’s ascension into infinite heights."

"What joy! Beyond death’s door I’m now made whole forevermore."

"No longer now I dwell earth-bound; resurrected, heaven-crowned."

"Exultant over death I stand, welcomed to the promised land."

"As shadows end where light transcends, in dazzling darkness now glory hidden revealed."

"As dross consumed that gold refined may shine, my mortal garb now cast aside sets spirit free."

"Cross over sorrow’s stormy sea to where bliss awaits eternally."

"The heavens ring: Behold the bright immortal one ascended! Hail the conquering spirit freed!"

"The holy laughter rings. The heavens resound with welcoming chorus as prodigals return."

"The hour strikes; my turn has come. I cast off the mantle of flesh at last for spirit’s robe."

"As darkness yields to dawn, so too mortality surrenders now to heaven’s reign."

"The hour strikes; ’tis time to travel on. Eternity beacons like a sunrise beckoning."

"Awaiting me beyond the portal, friends and loved ones, joy increased."

"The bond is burst, the spirit free! No more earth’s captive slave but heaven’s royalty."

"Now I ascend ever nearer the Source from which I came and know eternity face to face."

"The hour strikes; ‘tis time to travel on. Eternity beckons like sunrise calling me home."

"Now clothed with sacred fire not all earth’s waters could extinguish, I ascend on wings of light."

"Beyond the mortal vale, first light of eternity’s immortal dawn awaits."

"Beyond the mortal bar I greet at last bright eternal star."

"The spirit divine cannot be held by mortal bonds."

"Heaven’s gate stands open. Mortality now left behind."

"Angelic hosts sing greetings. Another soul heaven bound!"

"Radiant living light of heaven, stream through my soul’s awakened sight."

"Clothed now in divine immortal flesh awaken from this dream called death."

"The eternal soul, once shrouded, sheds earthly cloak for infinity."

"Now I exchange earthly robe for raiment ethereal beyond mortal eroding."

"As a stream joins the ocean, so my soul merges again with eternity’s open expanse."

"As clay breaks open to release the sculpture long concealed within, so now my deathless Self."

"Shadows of this life give way to heaven’s effulgence streaming all around."

"I step into more spacious views, earth falls to shadow; spirit skyward flies."

"Now increments of time give way to timeless vast eternity."

"Heaven’s boundless vistas bid me enter wider views."

"Unveiled before my sight infinity’s landscape; spirit knows spirit, light greets light."

"Heaven sings rejoicing: another wayfarer arrives to don immortality!"

"Heaven’s boundless sea receive now this earthly drop of me."

"What glories now mine eyes behold unveiled in realms sublime."

"Heaven’s breath now fills my spirit’s sail. No earthly winds prevail against me."

"Mortal time piece broken, now eternity’s expanse."

"Heavenly freedom now I breathe; no more earth’s captive slave."

"Triumph! No more to weep; eternal bliss now mine."

"No longer now I dwell earth bound; resurrected, heaven crowned."

"The veil lifts; what vistas unfold! Spirit knows spirit, light meets light."

"Heavenly hosts proclaim: Awake! Divine immortal dreams now yours to take."

"Departed now from realms of night, awakened here in endless light."

"All that I was but augurs glories now to be for me set free."

"In dazzling darkness now revealed glory hidden whilst in mortal fields."

"Here at heaven’s gate earth’s shadows dissipate before the rising light within."

"From earthly root to starward shoot I grow now."

"I stand awake upon immortal shores, earth’s slumbering dreams now o’er."

"Lift up your voice in song sublime, a pilgrim now in heaven’s clime."

"Metempsychosis now complete, my soul regains its rightful place."

"What glories for the spirit now unfurled beyond the mortal veil."

"Gone from sight but forever held in our hearts."

"Angelic light now shines revealing this world’s illusion."

"Free at last to soar unfettered in the infinite."

"The chains of earthly form have come undone."

"In oneness with the eternal, fear and sorrow cannot abide."

"The realm of spirit: robed in radiant light divine."

"Beyond the veil every tear is dried."

"What the senses cannot perceive, the spirit knows."

"The smallest seed holds the promise of infinite growth."

"The river of life flows on in boundless eternity."

"In the light of the beyond all is made clear."

"The soul takes flight to realms on high transcending earthly ties."

"The mortal journey ends but the eternal one goes on."

"O joy! To leave behind the fetters of mortality and don immortality instead."

"I rise beyond earth’s broken lyre to heaven’s harp of gold."

"If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I'd walk right up to heaven and bring you home again."

"The soul lives on in the eternal light."

"Death is but a doorway to new life."

"When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure."

"When the veil lifts, the truth shall be revealed."

"Beyond death’s dark curtain lies a bright new dawn."

"As a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, so the spirit is transformed."

"Fear not the realm of spirit, it welcomes you home."

"What seems an ending is but a glorious new beginning."