“The sorrow for the dead is the only sorrow from which we refuse to be divorced. Every other wound we seek to heal — every other affliction to forget: but this wound we consider it a duty to keep open — this affliction we cherish and brood over in solitude.”
"Rural Funerals".
The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon (1819–1820)
Help us to complete the source, original and additional information
Washington Irving 46
writer, historian and diplomat from the United States 1783–1859Related quotes

“If we want a love which will protect the soul from wounds we must love something other than God.”
Source: Simone Weil : An Anthology (1986), Love (1947), p. 62

Book XLII: Ch. 18: A summary of the changes which have occurred around the globe in my lifetime
Mémoires d'outre-tombe (1848 – 1850)
Context: New storms will arise; one can believe in calamities to come which will surpass the afflictions we have been overwhelmed by in the past; already, men are thinking of bandaging their old wounds to return to the battlefield. However, I do not expect an imminent outbreak of war: nations and kings are equally weary; unforeseen catastrophe will not yet fall on France: what follows me will only be the effect of general transformation. No doubt there will be painful moments: the face of the world cannot change without suffering. But, once again, there will be no separate revolutions; simply the great revolution approaching its end. The scenes of tomorrow no longer concern me; they call for other artists: your turn, gentlemen!
As I write these last words, my window, which looks west over the gardens of the Foreign Mission, is open: it is six in the morning; I can see the pale and swollen moon; it is sinking over the spire of the Invalides, scarcely touched by the first golden glow from the East; one might say that the old world was ending, and the new beginning. I behold the light of a dawn whose sunrise I shall never see. It only remains for me to sit down at the edge of my grave; then I shall descend boldly, crucifix in hand, into eternity.

“Time wounds all the heals, as we fade out of view.”
"I Sat By the Ocean", ...Like Clockwork (2013)
Lyrics, Queens of the Stone Age

“If we only have love
We can reach those in pain
We can heal all our wounds
We can use our own names.”
Translations and adaptations, If We Only Have Love (1968)