Top 70 Sorrow Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.”

— Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Also featured in: Happiness Quotes, Deep Quotes About Life, Quotes About Humanity, Depression Quotes

2. “Pain and suffering are always inevitable for a large intelligence and a deep heart. The really great men must, I think, have great sadness on earth.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Philosophical Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Existentialism Quotes

3. “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

Also featured in: Loss Quotes, Quotes About Feelings, Suffering Quotes, Sadness Quotes

4. “Later that night, I held an atlas on my lap, ran my fingers across the whole world, and whispered, ‘where does it hurt?’ It answered, everywhere, everywhere, everywhere.”

— Warsan Shire

Also featured in: Emotional Quotes, Sad Quotes, Quotes About Humanity, Pain Quotes

5. “A glooming peace this morning with it brings; The sun, for sorrow, will not show his head: Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things; Some shall be pardon’d, and some punished: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet and her Romeo.”

— William Shakespeare

Also featured in: Poetry Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes

6. “We were promised sufferings. They were part of the program. We were even told, ‘Blessed are they that mourn,’ and I accept it. I’ve got nothing that I hadn’t bargained for. Of course it is different when the thing happens to oneself, not to others, and in reality, not imagination.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Sadness Quotes

7. “I saw grief drinking a cup of sorrow and called out, ‘It tastes sweet, does it not?’ ‘You’ve caught me,’ grief answered, ’and you’ve ruined my business. How can I sell sorrow, when you know it’s a blessing?”

— Rumi

Also featured in: Grief Quotes

8. “The eye, like a shattered mirror, multiplies the images of sorrow.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

9. “I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.”

— Charlie Chaplin

Also featured in: Emotional Quotes, Emotion Quotes, Sad Quotes

10. “Thank you for the tragedy. I need it for my art.”

— Kurt Cobain

Also featured in: Music Quotes, Creativity Quotes, Appreciation Quotes, Gratitude Quotes

11. “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.”

— Jonathan Safran Foer

Also featured in: Happiness Quotes, Emotional Quotes, Life Lessons Quotes, Sad Quotes

12. “Of all sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest are these, ‘It might have been.’”

— John Greenleaf Whittier

Also featured in: Emotional Quotes, Past Quotes, Sadness Quotes, Regret Quotes

13. “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

— William Shakespeare

Also featured in: Fiction Quotes, Deep Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Life Is Short Quotes

14. “To truly laugh, you must be able to take your pain, and play with it.”

— Charlie Chaplin

Also featured in: Suffering Quotes, Humor Quotes, Pain Quotes

15. “The only way out of the labyrinth of suffering is to forgive.”

— John Green

Also featured in: Feel Better Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Forgiveness Quotes

16. “We are not necessarily doubting that God will do the best for us; we are wondering how painful the best will turn out to be.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Suffering Quotes, Pain Quotes

17. “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation.”

— Henry David Thoreau

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Sad Quotes, Meaning of Life Quotes, Suffering Quotes

18. “Leave my loneliness unbroken.”

— Edgar Allan Poe

Also featured in: Emotion Quotes, Loneliness Quotes, Sadness Quotes

19. “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.”

— Khalil Gibran

Also featured in: Emotion Quotes, Sad Quotes, Quotes About Feelings

20. “Embrace your grief. For there, your soul will grow.”

— C.G. Jung

Also featured in: Reflection Quotes, Sad Quotes, Loss Quotes, Soul Quotes

21. “It is better to be unhappy and know the worst, than to be happy in a fool’s paradise.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Also featured in: Intelligent Quotes, Truth Quotes, Depression Quotes, Pain Quotes

22. “To be always fortunate, and to pass through life with a soul that has never known sorrow, is to be ignorant of one half of nature.”

— Seneca

Also featured in: Struggle Quotes, Philosophy Quotes, Pain Quotes

23. “Life swings like a pendulum backward and forward between pain and boredom.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Also featured in: Philosophical Quotes, Depressing Quotes, Sad Quotes, Pain Quotes

24. “We could never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world.”

— Helen Keller

Also featured in: Deep Quotes About Life, Short Quotes About Life, Adversity Quotes

25. “Great men are always of a nature originally melancholy.”

— Aristotle

26. “Suffering has been stronger than all other teaching, and has taught me to understand what your heart used to be. I have been bent and broken, but – I hope – into a better shape.”

— Charles Dickens

Also featured in: Experience Quotes, Struggle Quotes, Suffering Quotes, Pain Quotes

27. “Turn away from mischief. Again and again, turn away. Before sorrow befalls you.”

— Buddha

Also featured in: Morality Quotes, Deep Quotes, Suffering Quotes

28. “I suggest to you that it is because God loves us that he gives us the gift of suffering. Pain is God’s megaphone to rouse a deaf world. You see, we are like blocks of stone out of which the Sculptor carves the forms of men. The blows of his chisel, which hurt us so much are what make us perfect.”

— C. S. Lewis

Also featured in: Christian Quotes, Christian Motivational Quotes, Suffering Quotes

29. “If you can make it through the night, there’s a brighter day.”

— Tupac Shakur

Also featured in: Not Giving Up Quotes, Quotes About Hope, Moving Quotes

30. “This is my last message to you: in sorrow, seek happiness.”

— Fyodor Dostoyevsky

Also featured in: Deep Quotes

31. “Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things.”

— Arthur Schopenhauer

Also featured in: Sad Quotes About Life, Loss Quotes, Suffering Quotes

32. “Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”

— Mary Oliver

Also featured in: Sad Quotes About Life, Healing Grief Quotes, Grief Quotes

33. “I like beautiful melodies telling me terrible things.”

— Tom Waits

Also featured in: Music Quotes, Depressing Quotes

34. “We shake with joy, we shake with grief. What a time they have, these two housed as they are in the same body.”

— Mary Oliver

Also featured in: Grief Quotes

35. “They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them.”

— Laurence Binyon

Also featured in: Poetry Quotes, Loss Quotes, Sacrifice Quotes, Quotes About War

36. “A broken heart heals when we allow the healing to go as deep as the wound went.”

— Beth Moore

Also featured in: Quotes About Heart, Healing Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Hurt Quotes

37. “A sad soul can kill quicker than a germ.”

— John Steinbeck

Also featured in: Mental Health Quotes, Sad Quotes, Depression Quotes, Loneliness Quotes

38. “I will love you as misfortune loves orphans, as fire loves innocence, and as justice loves to sit and watch while everything goes wrong.”

— Lemony Snicket

Also featured in: Sad Quotes, Hurt Quotes

39. “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.”

— Khalil Gibran

Also featured in: Quotes About Heart, Broken Heart Quotes, Healing Grief Quotes

40. “I am nothing. I’m like someone who’s been thrown into the ocean at night, floating all alone. I reach out, but no one is there. I call out, but no one answers. I have no connection to anything.”

— Haruki Murakami

Also featured in: Loss Quotes, Depression Quotes, Loneliness Quotes

41. “Life is pain, highness. Anyone who says differently is selling something.”

— William Goldman

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Sad Quotes, Sarcastic Quotes, Hurt Quotes

42. “I’m not okay.”

— Gerard Way

Also featured in: Depression Quotes, Loneliness Quotes, Honesty Quotes, Doubt Quotes

43. “My heart is so tired.”

— Markus Zusak

Also featured in: Life is Hard Quotes, Sad Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Tired Quotes

44. “I love my brother. I miss my brother.”

— Randy Quaid

Also featured in: Sad Quotes, Loss Quotes, Longing Quotes, Thinking of You Quotes

45. “Some kids are so depressed at home and with how people treat them in school that they cut themselves. This happens all over the world – kids who don’t want to kill themselves, but nobody understands how much they hurt, so they cut themselves with razor blades.”

— Chester Bennington

Also featured in: Mental Health Quotes, Depression Quotes, Hurt Quotes, Emo Quotes

46. “Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful? Will you still love me when I’ve got nothing but my aching soul?”

— Lana Del Rey

Also featured in: Sad Quotes, Romantic Quotes, Broken Heart Quotes, Quotes About Songs

47. “This is a moment of suffering. Suffering is part of life. May I be kind to myself in this moment. May I give myself the compassion I need.”

— Kristin Neff

Also featured in: Self-Care Quotes, Empathy Quotes, Acceptance Quotes, Mental Health Quotes, Wellness Wednesday Quotes

48. “If there is any possible consolation in the tragedy of losing someone we love very much, it’s the necessary hope that perhaps it was for the best.”

— Paulo Coelho

Also featured in: Sad Quotes About Life, Loss Quotes, Missing Someone Quotes

49. “Alone in a world, With millions of souls Walking in circles Trapped in their dreams unhealthy, unclean walking in circles, now do not disturb scream in silence everyone’s sleeping.”

— Chester Bennington

Also featured in: Depressing Quotes, Depression Quotes, Lonely Quotes, Feeling Alone Quotes

50. “Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not in vain.”

— Helen Keller

Also featured in: Empathy Quotes, Helping Others Quotes, Purpose Quotes