125 Sympathy Quotes and Messages for a Card or Note

Here are 125 emotional sympathy quotes about loss and grieving.

Certainly the hardest thing about life is death. Whether you are experiencing grief yourself or have the unpleasant fortune of watching a loved one grieve, sympathy can be difficult to express. However, if it's hard for you to find the words to convey your sympathy, there are always the words of others—the beautiful, emotional words of others—to fall back on when offering sympathy in a card or note. Or if you're going through a difficult time yourself, these messages of sympathy might just resonate with you.

Here are 125 emotional sympathy quotes and messages.

125 Sympathy Quotes

1. "To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die." —Thomas Campbell

2. "As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well spent brings happy death." —Leonardo Da Vinci

3. "The pain I feel now is the happiness I had before. That’s the deal.” —C.S. Lewis

4. "May angels lead you in." —Jimmy Eat World

5. "The more sympathy you give, the less you need.” —Malcolm Forbes

Related: What to Write in a Pet Sympathy Card

6. "It’s hard to forget someone who gave you so much to remember." —Unknown

7. "Death ends a life, not a relationship.  All the love you created is still there. All the memories are still there. You live on- in the hearts of everyone you have touched and nurtured while you were here."—Mitch Albom

Related: Quotes About Life

8. "Sorrow is so easy to express and yet so hard to tell." —Joni Mitchell

9. "Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.”—Emily Dickinson

10. "Pain is certain, suffering is optional." —Buddha

11. "There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart." —Mahatma Gandhi

12. "Grant but memory to us and we lose nothing by death.”—Whittier

13. "'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” —Alfred Lord Tennyson

14. "The pain of grief is just as much part of life as the joy of love: it is perhaps the price we pay for love, the cost of commitment.” —Dr. Colin Murray Parkes

15. "Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time. It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.” —Leo Buscaglia

16. "Grief and love are conjoined—you don’t get one without the other.” —Jandy Nelson

17. "Sympathy does not think. It acts. It acts to remove the ceaseless sufferings of the world.”—Sri Chinmoy

18. "A thousand moments that I had just taken for granted, mostly because I had assumed that there would be a thousand more.” —Morgan Matson

19. "Darkness may hide the trees and the flowers from the eyes but it cannot hide love from the soul.” —Rumi

20. "The Remembrance of the good done those we have loved is the only consolation when we have lost them." —Demoustier

Related: Condolence Messages

21. "What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” —Helen Keller

22. "May you take comfort in knowing there is one more angel above us.” —Unknown

23. "There is no pain so great as the Memory of joy in present grief.” —Aeschylus

24. "I know for certain that we never lose the people we love, even to death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our memories.” —Leo Buscaglia

25. "Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of overcoming it.” —Helen Keller

26. "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

27. "As we go through the journey of life, we must remember that the impressions we leave behind will define who and what we are. They are just as individual as the paths we have chosen to walk. So leave good impressions wherever you go.” —Dave Hedges

28. "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 of tears and despair and make it through the potholed street of life.” —Nicholas Sparks

29. "To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.” —J.K. Rowling

30. "There is no death. Only a change of worlds.” —Chief Seattle

31. "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” —A.A. Milne

32. "Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity.” —Terri Guillemets

33. "Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.” —Robert Louis Stevenson

34. "Although no words can take away the sorrow that you bare. May it be comforting to you to know that others care.” — Unknown

35. "It is not length of life, but depth of life.” —Ralph Waldo Emerson

36. "There is no way that i could being to explain to someone what it feels like being without you. I would say it’s like the earth without the sky.” —Cindy Adkins

37. "You can’t truly heal from a loss until you allow yourself to really feel the loss.” —Mandy Hale

38. "Absence and death are the same. Only that in death there is no suffering.” —Theodore Roosevelt

39. "There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.” —Thornton Wilder

40. "That though the radiance which was once so bright be now forever taken from my sight. Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, glory in the flower. We will grieve not; rather find strength in what remains behind.” —William Wordsworth

41. "There is something terribly morbid in the modern sympathy with pain. One should sympathize with the color, the beauty, the joy of life. The less said about life’s sores the better.” —Oscar Wilde

42. "I have sometimes been wildly, despairingly, acutely miserable, racked with sorrow, but through it all I still know quite certainly that just to be alive is a grand thing.” —Agatha Christie

43. "There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.” —Dante Alighieri

44. "Truly, it is in the darkness that one finds the light, so when we are in sorrow, then this light is nearest of all to us.” —Meister Eckhart

45. "I would trade all of my tomorrows for just one more day with you.” —Unknown

46. "Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.” —Rossiter W. Raymond

47. "I hold you with hands you cannot feel. I whisper words you cannot hear. I will never leave your side. I never left you I’m still here.” —John F. Connor

48. "If there was less sympathy in the world, there would be less trouble in the world.” —Oscar Wilde

49. "There will never be a day when I won’t think of you and wish you were here by my side.” —Narin Grewal

50. "A mother’s grief is as timeless as her love.” —Joanne Cacciatore

51. "And we wept that one so lovely should have a life so brief.” —William Cullen Bryant

52. "To desire and expect nothing for oneself and to have profound sympathy for others is genuine holiness." —Ivan Turgenev

53. "We are all the pieces of what we remember. We hold in ourselves the hopes and fears of those who love us. As long as there is love and memory, there is no true loss." —Cassandra Clare

54. "To lose someone you love is to alter your life forever. 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? […] This hole in my heart is in the shape of you and no one else can fit it." —Jeanette Winterson

55. "They mustn’t know my despair, I can’t let them see the wounds which they have caused, I couldn’t bear their sympathy and their kind-hearted jokes, it would only make me want to scream all the more." —Anne Frank

56. "Every time a tear forms in your beautiful eyes, look up to the heavens and there you will see me, smiling down from God’s glorious skies.” —Injete Chesoni

57. "Those we love can never be more than a thought away, for as long as there’s a memory they live in our hearts to stay.” —Unknown

58. "Sometimes I don’t want to talk about it. Not to anyone. No one. No one at all. I just want to think about it on my own, because it is mine, and no one else’s.” —Michael Rosen

59. "Mostly it is loss which teaches us about the worth of things."—Arthur Schopenhauer

60. "All their life in this world and all their adventures had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.” —C.S. Lewis

61. "So say it loud and let it ring. We are all part of everything. The future, present, and the past. Fly on proud bird. You’re free at last.” —Charlie Daniels

62. "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

63. "Perhaps they are not stars in the sky, but rather openings where our loved ones shine down to let us know they are happy.” —Eskimo Legend

64. "Do not think of me as gone. I am with you still in each new dawn.” —Native American Poem

65. "Wishing you strength for today and hope for tomorrow.” —Renee Oneill

66. "Gone from our sight, but never from our hearts.” —Unknown

67. "All things grow with time, except grief.” —Jewish Proverb

68. "When the heart grieves over what is has lost, the spirit rejoices over what it has left.” —Sufi

69. "Had I not loved so much I would not hurt so much. I will hurt. And I will be grateful for that hurt for it bears witness to the depth of our meaning. And for that I will be eternally grateful.” —Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

70. "Your life was a blessing, your memory a treasure. You are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure.” —Renee Wood

Sympathy Messages

71. "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

72. "What is lovely never dies, but passes into another loveliness, star-dust or sea-foam, flower or winged air.” —Thomas Bailey Aldrich

73. "When you find yourself weeping for what you have lost, remember that you are weeping for someone who blessed you with joy. How lucky we are to have all known such a wonderful person.” —Unknown

74. "The darker the night, the brighter the stars; the deeper the grief, the closer is God!” —Fyodor Dostoevsky

75. "They say that a part of you dies when a special loved one passes away… I disagree… I say a part of you lives with your loved one on the other side.” —Daniel Yanez

76. "The world is very quiet without you around.” —Lemony Snicket

77. "Your absence has gone through me like thread through a needle. Everything I do is stitched with its color." —W.S. Merwin

78. "When I am lonely, I think of you and all that you brought to my life. Your memory rests gently on my soul."—Cindy Adkins

79. "When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory become a treasure.” —Unknown

80. A great soul serves everyone all the time A great soul never dies. It bring us together again and again.” —Maya Angelou

81. "What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.” —Richard Bach

82. "We must embrace our pain and burn it as a fuel for our journey.” —Kenji Miyazawa

83. "For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.” —William Penn

84. "A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.” —Maya Angelou

85. "Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives the height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.” —Osho

86. "Don’t be ashamed to weep; ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones are sealed inside to comfort us." —Brian Jacques

87. "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.” —Kahlil Gibran

88. "While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.”—John Taylor

89. "Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.” —Unknown

90. "End? No, the journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take. The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and all turns to silver glass, and then you see it.” —J.R.R. Tolkien

91. "Listen to God with a broken heart. He is not only the doctor who mends it but also the father who wipes away the tears.” —Criss Jami

92. "I know now that we never get over great losses; we absorb them, and they carve us into different, often kinder, creatures." —Gail Caldwell

93. "The season of mourning, Like spring, summer, Fall and winter, will also pass.” —Molly Fumia

94. "No matter how prepared you think you are for death of loved one, it still comes as a shock, and it still hurts very deeply.” —Billy Graham

95. "After a loved one passes, be encouraged by their passing and legacy. Instead of crying, live an inspired, spiritual and happy life like they did when they were here. Live each day with encouragement knowing that they are proud and smiling down on you from Heaven.” —Matt Fraser

96. "We should feel sorrow, but not sink under its oppression.” —Confucius

 97. "Bear and endure: This sorrow will one day prove to be for your good.” —Ovid

98. "Grief is the price we pay for love.” —Queen Elizabeth II

99. "He spoke well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.” —Henry Longfellow

100. "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” —Hebrews 13:5

101. "However long the night, the dawn will break.” —African Proverb

102. "Our joys will be greater, our love will be deeper, our life will be fuller because we shared your moment.” —Unknown

103. "Our trials, our sorrows, and our grieves develop us.” —Orison Swett Marden

104. "Whoever you hold in the heart of you, is forever and always a part of you.” —Rossiter Raymond

105. "Those who weep recover more quickly than those who smile.” —Jean Giraudoux

106. "It’s sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.” —Henry Rollins

107. "Though lovers be lost, love shall not; And death shall have no dominion.” —Dylan Thomas

108. "You don’t get over it, you just get through it. You don’t get by it, because you can’t get around it. It doesn’t ‘get better’; it just gets different. Everyday grief puts on a new face.” —Wendy Feireisen

109. "How very softly you tiptoed into our world, almost silently, only a moment you stayed. But what an imprint your footsteps have left upon our hearts.” —Dorothy Ferguson

110. "From the end spring new beginnings.” —Pliny the Elder

111. "Ten long trips around the sun since I last saw that smile, but only joy and thankfulness that on a tiny world in the vastness, for a couple of moments in the immensity of time, we were one." —Ann Druyan

112. "Sorrow is a fruit. God does not make it grow on limbs too weak to bear it.” —Victor Hugo

113. "Because God is never cruel, there is a reason for all things. […] The terrible pain of loss teaches humility to our prideful kind, has the power to soften uncaring hearts, to make a better person of a good one." —Dean Koontz

114. "It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.” —John Steinbeck

115. "You don’t go around grieving all the time, but the grief is still there and always will be.” —Nigella Lawson

116. "If we never experience the chill of a dark winter, it is very unlikely that we will ever cherish the warmth of a bright summer’s day. Nothing stimulates our appetite for the simple joys of life more than the starvation caused by sadness or desperation. In order to complete our amazing life journey successfully, it is vital that we turn each and every dark tear into a pearl of wisdom, and find the blessing in every curse." —Anthon St. Maarten

117. "The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.” —Seneca

118. "Tenderly, may time heal your sorrow. Gently, may your friends ease your pain. Softly, may peace replace heartaches. And my warmest memories remain.” —Unknown

119. "If it were possible to heal sorrow by weeping and to raise the dead with tears, gold were less prized than grief.” —Sophocles

120. "If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.” —James O’Barr

121. "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.” —Leo Tolstoy

122. "Pain shared, my brother, is pain not doubled, but halved. No man is an island.” —Neil Gaiman

123. "Some losses don’t hurt just for a while, they hurt for a lifetime.” —Narin Grewal

124. "Only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footprints have left on our hearts.” —Dorothy Ferguson

125. “If something comes to life in others because of you, then you have made an approach to immortality.” —Norman Cousins

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