81 Grief Quotes that Help you Cope and Understand Loss (with Images)

Grief affects us all. At some point in our lives we will go through the process of grieving.

That’s why these quotes about grief can help. Feeling like you’re not alone and that there is a life after loss is so important to coping. Grief quotes do that.

They remind us that what we’re going through happens to so many. They allow us to put our emotions into perspective and understand them better. On top of all that they are a way to show and demonstrate our grief and what we’re experiencing.

So use these grief quotes to help understand your pain. Share them with others so it becomes more normal to talk about bereavement and grieving. Or reach out to someone you know who’s suffered a loss with these sayings to let them know you care and are trying to understand.

Short Grief Quotes

These are quick, to point, simple quotes about grief that sum it up in the most concise way.

“Grieving doesn’t make you imperfect. It makes you human” – Sarah Dessen

“Grit your teeth and let it hurt. Don’t deny it, don’t be overwhelmed by it. It will not last forever” – Rabbi Harold Kushner​

“Grief is love not wanting to let go” – Earl A. Grollman

“Here’s what I know: death abducts the dying, but grief steals from those left behind” – Katherine Owen

“Life is full of grief, to exactly the degree we allow ourselves to love other people” – Orson Scott Card

“No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear” – C.S. Lewis

“So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love” – E.A. Bucchianeri

“Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart” – Jose N. Harris

“When one person is missing the whole world seems empty” – Pat Schweibert

“Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone” – Unknown

“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, Winnie the Pooh

“Perhaps they are not the stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy” – Inuit Proverb

“Grief is itself a medicine” – William Cowper

“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything” – C.S. Lewis

“God gave us memory so that we might have roses in December” – J.M. Barrie

Positive Grief Quotes

Although grieving and loss are terrible to go through these quotes and grief sayings focus on the positives you can take and find after dealing with losing a loved one.

• “What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us” – Helen Keller
• “And sometimes, against all odds, against all logic, we still hope” – Unknown
• “The darker the night, the brighter the stars, the deeper the grief, the closer is God” – Fyodor Dostoevsky
• “To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die” – Thomas Campbell
• “This is not goodbye, my darling, this is a thank you. Thank you for coming into my life and giving me joy” – Nicholas Sparks
• “Grief can be a burden, but also an anchor. You get used to the weight, how it holds you in place” – Sarah Dessen
• “Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day… unseen, unheard, but always near, still loved, still missed, and very dear” – Unknown
• “When someone you love becomes a memory, that memory becomes a treasure” – Unknown
• “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard” – A.A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
• “There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone the light remains” –
• “Grief can be the garden of compassion. If you keep your heart open through everything, your pain can become your greatest ally in your life’s search for love and wisdom” – Rumi

Surviving Grief Quotes

For many people grief is overwhelming and just getting through it becomes their only goal. These quotes look at surviving grief and how you cope and keep going on after a tragic loss.

• It is perfectly okay to admit you’re not okay” – Unknown
• “You have within you, right now, everything you need to deal with whatever the world can throw at you” – Brian Tracy
• “The pain of grief is just as much a part of life as the joy of love; it is, perhaps, the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment” – Colin Murray Parkes
• “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world — the company of those who have known suffering” – Helen Keller
• “It takes strength to make your way through grief, to grab hold of life and let it pull you forward” – Patti Davis
• “Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself” – Leigh Bardugo
• “Everyone grieves in different ways. For some, it could take longer or shorter. I do know it never disappears. An ember still smolders inside me. Most days, I don’t notice it, but, out of the blue, it’ll flare to life” – Maria V. Snyder
• “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
• “…we are all sorry when loss comes for us. The test of our character comes not in how many tears we shed but in how we act after those tears have dried” – Michelle Moran
• 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​
• “Keep your head up. God gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers” – Unknown
• “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
• “Grief is a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it” – Arthur Golden

Famous Quotes about Grief

Many famous people, from writers, philosophers, musicians and more have talked about grief. These are just a few of the most well known.

• “They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies” – William Penn
• “Death ends a life, not a relationship” – Mitch Albom
• “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
• “Do you not know that a man is not dead while his name is still spoken?” – Terry Pratchett
• “Your memory feels like home to me. So whenever my mind wanders, it always finds it’s way back to you” – Ranata Suzuki
• “The song is ended, but the melody lingers on” – Irving Berlin
• “Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it” – William Shakespeare
• “She was no longer wrestling with the grief, but could sit down with It as a lasting companion and make it a sharer in her thoughts” – George Eliot
• “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
• “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 be in love with night, And pay no worship to the garish sun” – William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
• “No one is immune to grief. There are those amongst us today who have grieved deeply in the past, and there are those who are grieving deeply now and sadly. All of us will grieve at some time in the future” – Lorraine Kember

Grief and Anger Quotes

Losing someone is unfair. It brings unimaginable pain that will often come out as anger. You ask why has this happened? You are filled with despair and rage. These quotes reflect that anger that comes from such intense grief.

• “Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell” – Edna St. Vincent Millay
• “The whole world can become the enemy when you lose what you love” – Kristina McMorris
• “I can accept the idea of my own demise, but I am unable to accept the death of anyone else. I find it impossible to let a friend or relative go into that country to no return. Disbelief becomes my close companion, and anger follows in its wake. I answer the heroic question ‘Death, where is thy sting?’ with ‘It is here in my heart and mind and memories'” – Maya Angelou
• “You’ll get over it” It’s the clichés that cause the trouble. To lose someone you love is to alter your life for ever. You don’t get over it because ‘it” is the person you loved. The pain stops, there are new people, but the gap never closes. How could it? The particularness of someone who mattered enough to grieve over is not made anodyne by death. This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no-one else can fit it. Why would I want them to?” – Jeanette Winterson
• “The worst type of crying wasn’t the kind everyone could see – the wailing on street corners, the tearing at clothes. No, the worst kind happened when your soul wept and no matter what you did, there was no way to comfort it. A section withered and became a scar on the part of your soul that survived” – Katie McGarry
• “Whoever said that loss gets easier with time was a liar. Here’s what really happens: The spaces between the times you miss them grow longer. Then, when you do remember to miss them again, it’s still with a stabbing pain to the heart. And you have guilt. Guilt because it’s been too long since you missed them last” – Kristin O’Donnell Tubb
• “But grief makes a monster out of us sometimes… and sometimes you say and do things to the people you love that you can’t forgive yourself for” – Melina Marchetta
• “Next person that minimizes my grief is getting a swift kick to the shin” – Unknown
• “Losing him was like having a hole shot straight through me, a painful, constant reminder, an absence I could never fill” – Jojo Moyes
• “It doesn’t get better,” I said. “The pain. The wounds scab over and you don’t always feel like a knife is slashing through you. But when you least expect it, the pain flashes to remind you you’ll never be the same” – Katie McGarry
• “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 to tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life” – Nicholas Sparks
• As much as it hurts, suppressing how you feel is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker and turning off the steam valve, eventually it will blow. By expressing your emotions, you start the healing process” – M. Hunter

Quotes about Moving on

We have to try to continue our lives after a loss. We never forget those who have left us but getting passed that grief is key to living again. The quotes here look at how to move on after a loss and such a difficult time.

• “You will survive and you will find purpose in the chaos. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go” – Mary VanHaute
• “And perhaps there is a limit to the grieving that the human heart can do. As when one adds salt to a tumbler of water, there comes a point where simply no more will be absorbed” – Sarah Waters
• “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
• “Look closely and you will see almost everyone carrying bags of cement on their shoulders. That’s why it takes courage to get out of bed in the morning and climb into the day” – Edward Hirsch
• “When it is darkest, we can see the stars” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
• “An eternal memory… until we meet again: Those special memories will always bring a smile if only I could have you back for just a little while. Then we could sit and talk again just like we used to do, you always meant so very much and always will do too. The fact that you’re no longer here will always cause me pain, but you’re forever in my heart until we meet again” – Unknown
• “Accepting death doesn’t mean you won’t be devastated when someone you love dies. It means you will be able to focus on your grief, unburdened by bigger existential questions like, “Why do people die?” and “Why is this happening to me?” Death isn’t happening to you. Death is happening to us all” – Caitlin Doughty
• “The only cure for grief is action” – George Henry Lewis
• “When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left” – Sufi Epigram

Bible Verses for Grief

For many faith is a comfort when coping with loss and grief. It provides them with strength and hope to face the pain. These Bible quotes about grief help to find

• “Give all your worries to Him, because He cares for you” – 1 Peter 5:7
• “God is our refuge and strength, A very present help in trouble” – Psalm 46:1
• “Blessed are those who mourn for they shall be comforted” – Matthew 5:4
• “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” – Psalm 147:3
• “Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me” – Psalm 23:4
• “The Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves the crushed in spirit” – Psalm 34:18
• “So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy” – John 16:22
• “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away” – Revelation 21:4
• “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” – Isaiah 41:10

We hope these grief quotes have helped you to find some comfort or reach out to those grieving. We need to begin confronting grief, talking more openly and remove the stigma surrounding it. Hopefully that conversation will start soon.