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Sympathy Quotes

Here are our collections of sympathy quotes for those difficult time periods when someone you know has experienced a loss.

Finding the right words can be difficult – especially during difficult times.

Expressing your thoughts and prayers to the bereaved can provide some level of comfort. These heartfelt sympathy quotes can be reviewed for additional ideas on what to communicate.

You might choose to include one of these quotes in a condolence card accompanied by a hug. The grieving process can be challenging for many, and folks handle grief in different ways.

Best sympathy quotes.

Sympathy Quotations to Reflect On

1.) God is closest to those with broken hearts.
Jewish Saying

2.) 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. We find comfort in knowing that our lives have been enriched by having shared their love.
Leo Buscaglia

3.) I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge – myth is more potent than history – dreams are more powerful than facts – hope always triumphs over experience – laughter is the cure for grief – love is stronger than death.
Robert Fulghum

4.) There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.
Gandhi

5.) May you see God’s light on the path ahead
When the road you walk is dark.
May you always hear,
Even in your hour of sorrow,
The gentle singing of the lark.
When times are hard, may hardness
Never turn your heart to stone,
May you always remember
when the shadows fall –
You do not walk alone.
Irish Blessing

6.) Grieve not, nor speak of me with tears, but laugh and talk of me as if I were beside you. I loved you so – ‘twas heaven here with you.
Isla Paschal Richardson

7.) As you danced in the light with joy, love lifted you. As you brushed against this world so gently, you lifted us.
TC Ring

See condolence messages and quotes for those who have lost a loved one.

Gandhi quote on goodbyes.

Sorry to Hear Quotes

8.) Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.
William Shakespeare

9.) Although it’s difficult today to see beyond the sorrow, may looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow.
Unknown

10.) Although the pain seems like it will never end, it doesn’t, but I promise it will get easier to handle and deal within time. Also, remember… although you loved them, God loved them more.
Unknown

11.) As you comprehend this profound loss… let yourself cry, knowing each tear is a note of love rising to the heavens.
Unknown

12.) While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.
John Taylor

13.) 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 them.
Leo Tolstoy

See Good Condolence Messages.

To Reflect On

14.) Believe in Angels. They express themselves in many ways: a dream, a whisper, a coincidence, an overpowering feeling.
Unknown

15.) How very quietly you tiptoed into our world, silently, only a moment you stayed. But what an imprint your footprints have left upon our hearts.
Unknown

16.) Each new life, no matter how brief, forever changes the world.
Unknown

17.) Forever blessed by the memories you left behind.
Unknown

18.) Friends are the pillars on your porch. Sometimes they hold you up, sometimes, they lean on you, and sometimes it’s just enough to know that they are standing by.
Unknown

19.) 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

Condolences for the Loss of a Mother

20.) But she wasn’t around, and that’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going into every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.
Mitch Albom

21.) My mom is a never-ending song in my heart of comfort, happiness, and being. I may sometimes forget the words but I always remember the tune.
Graycie Harmon

22.) Grace was in all her steps, heaven in her eye, in every gesture, dignity, and love.
John Milton

23.) Once upon a memory someone wiped away a tear, held me close and loved me, thank you, Mother dear.
Unknown

24.) When you speak of her, speak not with tears, for thoughts of her should not be sad. Let memories of the times you shared give you comfort, for her life was rich because of you.
Unknown

25.) A mother holds her children’s hands for a while, their hearts forever.
Unknown

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Guiding Hand insight.

Sympathy Quotes For Loss of a Father

26.) Your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.
Unknown

27.) Say not in grief, “He is no more,” but in thankfulness that, “He was.”
Unknown

28.) 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

For Loss of Husband

29.) As long as I can I will look at this world for both of us, as long as I can, I will laugh with the birds, I will sing with the flowers, and I will pray to the stars, for both of us.
Unknown

30.) We’ve shared our lives these many years. You’ve held my hand; you’ve held my heart. So many blessings, so few tears – yet, for a moment, we must part.
Unknown

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

32.) I think when loved ones die, we absorb something from them that makes us who we are so we can continue on.
Reginald VelJohnson

Sympathy Quotes for Loss of Family Member

33.) I don’t believe an accident of birth makes people sisters or brothers. It makes them siblings, gives them mutuality of parentage. Sisterhood and brotherhood is a condition people have to work at.
Maya Angelou

34.) A brother is a friend given by Nature.
Jean Baptiste Legouve

35.) Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day.
Unknown

36.) You can’t forget someone who gave you so much to remember.
Unknown

Sympathy Quotes For Loss of Son

37.) To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
Thomas Campbell

38.) Earth has no sorrow that heaven cannot heal.
Unknown

39.) May every sunrise hold more promise, and every moonrise hold more peace.
Unknown

Sympathy Quotes For Loss of Daughter

40.) Wishing you strength for today and hope for tomorrow.
Unknown

41.) When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure.
Unknown

42.) My heart is with you in your time of sorrow.
Unknown

43.) 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

Grief Quotes

44.) The guardian angels of life fly so high as to be beyond our sight, but they are always looking down upon us.
Jean-Paul Richter

45.) Everyone copes differently, some cry for the loss of a loved one, others smile because they know they’ll see them again.
Unknown

46.) While we are mourning the loss of a friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.
Unknown

47.) There is no pain so great as the Memory of joy in present grief.
Aeschylus

48.) 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

49.) Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.
Unknown

50.) The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God.
Eileen Elias Freeman

Thoughtful Grief Quotations

51.) May the blessings of love be upon you, May its peace abide with you, May its essence illuminate your heart, Now and forevermore.
Sufi Blessing

52.) If the future seems overwhelming, remember that it comes one moment at a time.
Beth Mende Conny

53.) We acquire the strength we have overcome.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

54.) May the stars carry your sadness away, and May the flowers fill your heart with beauty.
Chief Dan George

55.) The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart.
Helen Keller

56.) What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.
Helen Keller

Heartfelt Words

57.) It doesn’t end after a year; that’s a false fantasy. It usually ends when people realize that they can live again, that they can concentrate their energies on their lives as a whole and onto on their hurt, and guilt, and pain.
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross

58.) Let your tears come. Let them water your soul.
Eileen Mayhew

59.) They say love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.
William Penn

60.) Grief makes one hour ten.
William Shakespeare

61.) Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in a time of sorrow.
Robert Louis Stevenson

62.) If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.
Alfred Lord Tennyson

63.) Mourning can go on for years and years.
Unknown

64.) Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know that are happy.
Unknown

65.) When a soul dies, the winds will blow. The greater the soul, the greater the winds.
Unknown

66.) When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead, keep your head up high and gaze into heaven, for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal.
Unknown

67.) Tears are the silent language of grief.
Voltaire

68.) Though nothing can bring back the hour of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower. We will grieve not, rather find strength in what remains behind.
William Wadsworth

Checklist for planning a funeral

Sympathy Quotes

69.) Wherever you are you will always be in my heart.
Mahatma Gandhi

70.) While grief is fresh, every attempt to divert only irritates. You must wait till it is digested, and then amusement will dissipate the remains of it.
Samuel Johnson

71.) 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

72.) A thousand words can’t bring you back, I know because I tried. And neither can a million tears, I know because I cried.
Unknown

73.) If every tear we shed for you became a star above, you’d stroll in Angel’s gardens lit by everlasting love.
Unknown

74.) You never truly know what’s on someone’s heart, so treat them with kindness, respect, and compassion.
Joel Zambrano

75.) He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.
Antoine de Saint-Exupery

Deepest Sympathy

76.) To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
Thomas Campbell

77.) Sending you my love and comfort. My deepest sympathies for your loss.
Unknown

78.) In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
Abraham Lincoln

79.) A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.
Maya Angelou

80.) He spoke well who said that graves are the footprints of angels.
Henry Wadsworth

81.) He who has a ‘why’ to live can bear almost any ‘how.’
Friedrich Nietzsche

82.) It is not length of life, but depth of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

83.) 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

Comforting Words

84.) Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity.
Terri Guillemets

85.) 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

86.) For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity.
William Penn

87.) What is lovely never dies but passes into another loveliness, Star-dust or sea foam, Flower or winged air.
Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Heartfelt Sympathy Quotes

88.) 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

89.) As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.
Leonardo Da Vinci

90.) Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality.
Emily Dickinson

92.) Some people come into our lives, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never the same.
Unknown

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Heartfelt Sympathy

93.) Grief is the price we pay for love.
Queen Elizabeth

94.) Those we have held in our arms for a little while, we hold in our hearts forever.
Unknown

95.) May the sorrow you feel in your heart lighten by the love that surrounds you. Unknown

96.) Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal.
Irish Quote

97.) When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for yourself.
Kahlil Gibran

Bible Verses

98.) Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Matthew 11:28-30

99.) Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Matthew 5:4

100.) No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him.
1Cor 2:9

101.) God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
Psalm 46:1

102.) The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Psalm 34:18

103.) I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies, and whoever lives and believes in me will never die.
John 11:25,26

Keep these sympathy quotes in mind as you offer your deepest condolences, convey your empathy, and remember the deceased.

By Michael O’Halloran

Michael is the founder and editor of Greeting Card Poet.

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