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sorrow quotes

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“Sleep, that sometimes shuts up sorrow's eye, steal me awhile from mine own company.” William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night's Dream
“When sorrows come, they come not single spies, But in battalions!” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“Grief makes one hour ten.” William Shakespeare, Richard II
“He who does not weep does not see.” Victor Hugo, Les Misérables
“Proud people breed sad sorrows for themselves.” Emily Brontë, Wuthering Heights
“There is no greater sorrow Than to be mindful of the happy time In misery, and that thy Teacher knows.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
“If you would know the value of money, go and try to borrow some; for, he that goes a borrowing goes a sorrowing.” Benjamin Franklin, The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
“Tragic phrases comfort the heart.... Without them, sorrow would be too heavy for men to bear.” Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
“I want to weep . . . I want to be comforted. I’m so tired of being strong. I want to be foolish and frightened for once. Just for a small while, that’s all...” George R. R. Martin, A Clash of Kings
“Slaves sing most when they are most unhappy. The songs of the slave represent the sorrows of his heart; and he is relieved by them, only as an aching heart is relieved by its tears.” Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave
“It is only shallow people who require years to get rid of an emotion. A man who is master of himself can end a sorrow as easily as he can invent a pleasure. I don't want to be at the mercy of my emotions. I want to use them, to enjoy them, and to...” Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
“I was weeping again, drunk on the impossible past.” Vladimir Nabokov, Lolita
“Sorrow concealed, like an oven stopp'd, doth burn the heart to cinders where it is.” William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
“A glooming peace this morning with it brings. The sun for sorrow will not show his head.” William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
“Heaven knows we need never be ashamed of our tears, for they are rain upon the blinding dust of earth, overlying our hard hearts.” Charles Dickens, Great Expectations
“It seldom visits sorrow; when it doth, It is a comforter.” William Shakespeare, The Tempest
“The only people I would care to be with now are artists and people who have suffered: those who know what beauty is, and those who know what sorrow is: nobody else interests me.” Oscar Wilde, De Profundis
“For gnarling sorrow hath less power to bite the man that mocks at it and sets it light.” William Shakespeare, Richard II
“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, Hyperion
“Affliction may one day smile again; and till then, sit thee down, sorrow!” William Shakespeare, Love's Labour's Lost
“I felt that I breathed an atmosphere of sorrow.” Edgar Allan Poe, The Fall of the House of Usher
“There is prodigious strength . . . in sorrow and despair.” Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities
“Or are you like the painting of a sorrow, a face without a heart?” William Shakespeare, Hamlet
“It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good-humour.” Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
“What greater thing is there for two human souls than to feel that they are joined for life—to strengthen each other in all labour, to rest on each other in all sorrow, to minister to each other in all pain, to be one with each other in silent...” George Eliot, Adam Bede
“When I realize that she is gone, perhaps gone forever, a great void opens up and I feel that I am falling, falling, falling into deep, black space. And this is worse than tears, deeper than regret or pain or sorrow; it is the abyss into which...” Henry Miller, Tropic of Cancer
“The weapons of divine justice are blunted by the confession and sorrow of the offender.” Dante Alighieri, Divine Comedy
“This feather stirs; she lives! If it be so, it is a chance which does redeem all sorrows that ever I have felt.” William Shakespeare, King Lear
“Suddenly he knew joy and sorrow felted into one fabric. Courage and fear were one thing too.” John Steinbeck, East of Eden
“Short time seems long in sorrow's sharp sustaining.” William Shakespeare, The Rape of Lucrece
“Excess of joy is harder to bear than any amount of sorrow.” Honoré de Balzac, Letters of Two Brides
“If there were reason for these miseries, then into limits could I bind my woes.” William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
“pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.” Leo Tolstoy, War and Peace
“There are some situations which men understand by instinct, but which reason is powerless to explain; in such cases the greatest poet is he who gives utterance to the most natural and vehement outburst of sorrow.” Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
“Naturalists tell of a noble race of horses that instinctively open a vein with their teeth, when heated and exhausted by a long course, in order to breathe more freely. I am often tempted to open a vein, to procure for myself everlasting liberty.” Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, The Sorrows of Young Werther
“It is also a duty owed to yourself, for excessive sorrow prevents improvement or enjoyment, or even the discharge of daily usefulness, without which no man is fit for society.” Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
“What woe is lacking to my tale of woes?” Sophocles, Antigone
“Time: old cold time, old sorrow, settling down in layers like silt in a pond.” Margaret Atwood, The Blind Assassin
“These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.” George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss
“I am young, I am twenty years old; yet I know nothing of life but despair, death, fear, and fatuous superficiality cast over an abyss of sorrow. I see how peoples are set against one another, and in silence, unknowingly, foolishly, obediently,...” Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front
“She did not want to talk of her sorrow, but with that sorrow in her heart she could not talk of outside matters.” Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina
“Self-loathing is not sorrow. Yet it is good, for it marks a step in the way home, and in the father's arms the prodigal forgets the self he abominates. Once with his father, he is to himself of no more account.” George MacDonald, Lilith
“In sorrow we must go, but not in despair. Behold! we are not bound for ever to the circles of the world, and beyond them is more than memory.” J. R. R. Tolkien, The Return of the King

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suffering joy death pain happiness strength fate sadness time crying grief youth words love life heart wisdom beauty freedom reason

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William Shakespeare (12)
Charles Dickens (3)
Oscar Wilde (2)
Leo Tolstoy (2)
George Eliot (2)
Dante Alighieri (2)
Victor Hugo (1)
Fyodor Dostoyevsky (1)
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1)
John Steinbeck (1)
Frederick Douglass (1)
J. R. R. Tolkien (1)
Edgar Allan Poe (1)
George R. R. Martin (1)
Mary Shelley (1)
Benjamin Franklin (1)
Alexandre Dumas (1)
Margaret Atwood (1)
Henry Miller (1)
George MacDonald (1)

Related sources

Hamlet (2)
Richard II (2)
Titus Andronicus (2)
Divine Comedy (2)
Romeo and Juliet (1)
King Lear (1)
The Tempest (1)
The Rape of Lucrece (1)
The Sorrows of Young Werther (1)
The Brothers Karamazov (1)
Great Expectations (1)
The Picture of Dorian Gray (1)
Wuthering Heights (1)
A Christmas Carol (1)
A Tale of Two Cities (1)
The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin (1)
Anna Karenina (1)
East of Eden (1)
Frankenstein (1)
The Count of Monte Cristo (1)