10 Quotes to Ponder While Grieving

Words can calm our hearts, comfort our troubled souls, and provide some light for our path.

What I’ve put together are 10 quotes that landed for me when I read them. As you read them, may you find encouragement, strength, direction, or a ray of hope no matter what place in life you find yourself.

10 Quotes to Ponder

#1: The kind of friends that matter

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most to us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a warm and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares. — Henri Nouwen

#2: The value of letting go

We must let go of the life we have planned, so as to accept the one that is waiting for us. — Joseph Campbell

#3: The risk of love

The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief — but the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love. — Hillary Stanton Zunin

#4: Grief is not a disorder or disease

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

#5: The sacredness in tears

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

#6: The silent language of grief

Tears are the silent language of grief. — Voltaire

#7: Clutching the past

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

#8: Three needs of the griever

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

#9: Secret sorrows

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

#10: Coping with life

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

Which quote resonates with you the most?