#Grief Quotes

“Honest plain words best pierce the ear of grief.”

“Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty look, repeats his words, Remembers me of his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form”

“Join not with grief, fair woman, do not so,To make my end too sudden.”

“Remember thee!Ay, thou poor ghost, while memory holds a seatIn this distracted globe.”

“Come away, come away, Death, And in sad cypress let me be laid; Fly away, fly away, breath, I am slain by a fair cruel maid. My shroud of white stuck all with yew, O prepare it! My part of death no one so true did share it. Not a flower, not a flower sweet, On my black coffin let there be strewn: Not a friend, not a friend greet My poor corpse, where my bones shall be thrown. A thousand thousand sighs to save, lay me O where Sad true lover never find my grave, to weep there!”

“My rage is gone,And I am struck with sorrow. Take him up.Help, three o' th' chiefest soldiers; I'll be one.Beat thou the drum, that it speaks mournfully,Trail your steel spikes. Though in this city heHath widowed and unchilded many a one,Which to this hour bewail the injury,Yet he shall have a noble memory.Assist.”

“Therefore I tell my sorrows to the stones; Who, though they cannot answer my distress, Yet in some sort they are better than the tribunes, For that they will not intercept my tale: When I do weep, they humbly at my feet Receive my tears and seem to weep with me; And, were they but attired in grave weeds, Rome could afford no tribune like to these.”

“My grief lies onward, and my joy behind.”

“Lords, knights and gentlemen, what I should sayMy tears gainsay; for every word I speak,Ye see I drink the water of my eye.”

“I am not prone to weeping as our sex commonly are; the want of which vain dew perchance shall dry your pities;but I have that honorable grief lodged here which burns worse than tears drown.”

“The gallantry of his grief did put me into a towering passion.”

“Cordelia! stay a little. Ha! What is't thou say'st? Her voice was ever soft.”

“So sweet was ne'er so fatal. I must weep. But they are creul tears. This sorrow's heavenly; it strikes where it doth love.”

“Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.”

“You may my Glories and my State depose, But not my Griefes; still am I King of those.”

“Neither my place, nor aught I heard of business,Hath raised me from my bed; nor doth the general careTake hold on me; for my particular griefIs of so floodgate and o'erbearing natureThat it engluts and swallows other sorrows,And it is still itself.”

“Grief makes one hour ten.”

“This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.”

“No, no; 'tis all men's office to speak patience To those that wring under the load of sorrow, But no man's virtue nor sufficiency To be so moral when he shall endure The like himself. Therefore give me no counsel: My griefs cry louder than advertisement.”

“for my grief's so great That no supporter but the huge firm earth Can hold it up: here I and sorrows sit; Here is my throne, bid kings come bow to it. (Constance, from King John, Act III, scene 1)”

“Seems," madam? Nay, it is; I know not "seems." 'Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Nor customary suits of solemn black, Nor windy suspiration of forced breath, No, nor the fruitful river in the eye, Nor the dejected 'havior of the visage, Together with all forms, moods, shapes of grief, That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, For they are actions that a man might play: But I have that within which passeth show; These but the trappings and the suits of woe.”

“Well, every one can master a grief but he that has it.”

“Ere yet the salt of most unrighteous tears Had left the flushing of her gallèd eyes, She married. O, most wicked speed, to post With such dexterity to incestuous sheets!”

“To weep is to make less the depth of grief.”

“What's the newest grief? Each minute tunes a new one.”

“The violence of either grief or joy, their own enactures with themselves destroy.”

“She never told her love, but let concealment, like a worm 'i th' bud, feed on her damask cheek. She pinned in thought; and, with a green and yellow melancholy, she sat like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief. Was not this love indeed? We men may say more, swear more; but indeed our shows are more than will; for we still prove much in our vows but little in our love.”

“But there is no such man; for, brother, menCan counsel and speak comfort to that griefWhich they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,Their counsel turns to passion, which beforeWould give preceptial medicine to rage,Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,Charm ache with air and agony with words.”

“I wasted time, and now doth time waste me; For now hath time made me his numbering clock: My thoughts are minutes; and with sighs they jar Their watches on unto mine eyes, the outward watch, Whereto my finger, like a dial's point, Is pointing still, in cleansing them from tears. Now sir, the sound that tells what hour it is Are clamorous goans, which strike upon my heart, Which is the bell: so sighs and tears and groans Show minutes, times, and hours.”

“So many miseries have craz'd my voice,That my woe-wearied tongue is still and mute.”

“I loved Ophelia. Forty thousand brothers could not, with all their quantity of love, make up my sum.”

“Weep not, sweet queen, for trickling tears are vain.”

“Sorrow breaks seasons and reposing hours, Makes the night morning, and the noontide night.”

“I never yet did hear, That the bruis'd heart was pierced through the ear”

“In sweet music is such art: killing care and grief of heart fall asleep, or hearing, die.”

“If you have tears, prepare to shed them now.”

“And my poor fool is hanged! No, no, no life! Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life, And thou no breath at all? Thou'lt come no more, Never, Never, Never, Never, Never! Pray you, undo this button.”

“When remedies are past, the griefs are endedBy seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.”

“Is there no pity sitting in the clouds, That sees into the bottom of my grief?”

“Grief best is pleased with grief's society.”

“Grief hath two tongues; and never woman yetCould rule them both without ten women's wit.”

“What sadness lengthens Romeo’s hours?”

“O, grief hath changed me since you saw me last, And careful hours with Time's deformed hand Have written strange defeatures in my face. But tell me yet, dost thou not know my voice?”

“A plague of sighing and grief! It blows a man up like a bladder.”

“I have full cause of weeping, but this heart shall break into a hundred thousand flaws or ere I'll weep.”

“Would I were dead, if God's good will were so,For what is in this world but grief and woe?”

“Too much of water hast thou, poor Ophelia, And therefore I forbid my tears: But yet It is our trick; nature her custom holds, Let shame say what it will: when these are gone, The woman will be out. — Adieu, my lord! I have a speech of fire, that fain would blaze, But that this folly drowns it.”

“To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on.”

“What's gone, and what's past help, Should be past grief.”

“Tut, man, one fire burns out another's burning; One pain is less'ned by another's anguish; Turn giddy, and be holp by backward turning; One desperate grief cures with another's languish.”