All quotes

Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change

The other great silences, those of death, grief, or destiny, do not belong to us.

It is good to enlarge one’s sorrows, since thus does enlargement come to our consciousness, and there, there alone do we truly feel that we live.

a man should, at the first approaches, favour their grief and express some approbation of their sorrow

A man should diffuse joy, but, as much as he can, smother grief.

For this reason there is no truth comparable to sorrow.

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.

Only, my dear wife, let us both be patient at this calamity.

Otherwise, my dear wife, we shall seem discontented at the birth of our little daughter, if we consider our position before her birth as more perfect.

much of grief is blunted and relaxed when the body is permeated by calm, like the sea in fine weather

these things occurring daily and being importunate make the mind little, and narrow, and unsocial, and harsh, and timid, so that, being besieged and taken in hand by grief, it can no longer laugh, and shuns daylight, and avoids society

when people see their friends' houses on fire they put it out as quickly and energetically as they can, but when their souls are on fire they themselves bring fuel

Now the discourse that ought to come from friends and people disposed to be helpful should be consolation, and not mere assent with a man's sad feelings.

Again, in taking away our friends, death does not take them away utterly, but leaves behind a mocking, tragical, and soon intolerable residue, which must be hurriedly concealed.

Before those who loved him, his memory shines like a reproach; they honour him for silent lessons; they cherish his example; and in what remains before them of their toil, fear to be unworthy of the dead.

The powers and the ground of friendship is a mystery; but, looking back, I can discern that, in part, we loved the thing he was, for some shadow of what he was to be.

Many friendships are formed by a community of sensual pleasures: all these will be cut off.

Parents we can have but once; and he promises himself too much, who enters life with the expectation of finding many friends.

Even grief, that passion to which the virtuous and tender mind is particularly subject, will be obviated or alleviated by the same thoughts.

The disturbers of our happiness, in this world, are our desires, our griefs, and our fears; and to all these, the consideration of mortality is a certain and adequate remedy.

Sorrow is a kind of rust of the soul, which every new idea contributes in its passage to scour away.

In time, the most stubborn grief will leave us, if in prudence we do not leave that first.

The ostentation of grief is many times more than the grief itself.

To lament the death of a friend is both natural and just; a sigh or a tear I would allow to his memory: but no profuse or obstinate sorrow.

To mourn without measure is folly, and not to mourn at all is insensibility.