William Wordsworth (1770–1850) English Romantic poet
Actually Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Driftwood (1857)
Misattributed
Sad quotes page 2
“The wiser head gives in! An immortal phrase. It founds the world dominion of stupidity.”
Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach (1830–1916) Austrian writer
Der Gescheitere gibt nach! Ein unsterbliches Wort. Es begründet die Weltherrschaft der Dummheit.
Aphorisms (1893), p. 6
“None of it is important or all of it is.”
John Steinbeck book The Log from the Sea of Cortez
Introduction
The Log from the Sea of Cortez (1951)
Context: "... Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
“It is sad to grow old but nice to ripen.”
Brigitte Bardot (1934) French model, actor, singer and animal rights activist
“The trouble is, you think you have time.”
Jack Kornfield (1945) American writer
Source: Buddha's Little Instruction Book
“The cure for a broken heart is simple, my lady. A hot bath and a good night's sleep.”
Margaret George (1943) American writer
Source: Mary Queen of Scotland and The Isles
“Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.”
Mitch Albom Tuesdays with Morrie
Source: Tuesdays with Morrie
Jonathan Safran Foer book Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close
Source: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close (2005), p. 43
“I can't eat and I can't sleep. I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human, you know?”
Ned Vizzini book It's Kind of a Funny Story
Variant: I'm not doing well in terms of being a functional human.
Source: It's Kind of a Funny Story
“Can you see me? All of me? Probably not. No one ever really has.”
Jeffrey Eugenides book Middlesex
Source: Middlesex
“Life's under no obligation to give us what we expect.”
Margaret Mitchell (1900–1949) American author and journalist
“No one forgets the truth; they just get better at lying.”
Richard Yates book Revolutionary Road
Source: Revolutionary Road
“Sharp are the arrows of a broken heart.”
Cassandra Clare book City of Heavenly Fire
Source: City of Heavenly Fire
“Here is the riddle of love: Everything it gives to you, it takes away.”
Alice Hoffman book The Dovekeepers
Source: The Dovekeepers
“Truth is in things, and not in words.”
Herman Melville (1818–1891) American novelist, short story writer, essayist, and poet
“Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?”
Haruki Murakami book Sputnik Sweetheart
Source: Sputnik Sweetheart
“The world breaks every one and afterward many are strong at the broken places.”
Ernest Hemingway book A Farewell to Arms
Source: A Farewell to Arms
“Only time can heal your broken heart. Just as only time can heal his broken arms and legs.”
Jim Henson (1936–1990) American puppeteer
“I like you very much. Just as you are.”
Helen Fielding book Bridget Jones's Diary
Source: Bridget Jones's Diary
Emily Giffin (1972) American writer
Source: Love the One You're With
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882) American poet
Hyperion http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/5436, Bk. III, Ch. IV (1839). <br class="br">Variant: Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad. <br class="br">Context: "Ah! this beautiful world!" said Flemming, with a smile. "Indeed, I know not what to think of it. Sometimes it is all gladness and sunshine, and Heaven itself lies not far off. And then it changes suddenly; and is dark and sorrowful, and clouds shut out the sky. In the lives of the saddest of us, there are bright days like this, when we feel as if we could take the great world in our arms and kiss it. Then come the gloomy hours, when the fire will neither burn on our hearths nor in our hearts; and all without and within is dismal, cold, and dark. Believe me, every heart has its secret sorrows, which the world knows not, and oftentimes we call a man cold, when he is only sad."
Diana Peterfreund (1979) American writer
Source: For Darkness Shows the Stars
“There is no time to leave important words unsaid.”
Paulo Coelho (1947) Brazilian lyricist and novelist
“… when pain is over, the remembrance of it often becomes a pleasure.”
Jane Austen book Persuasion
Source: Persuasion
“For every minute you are angry you lose sixty seconds of happiness.”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
No known source in Emerson's works; first found as a piece of anonymous folk-wisdom in a 1936 newspaper column:<br>: Every minute you are angry, you lose 60 seconds of happiness.<br>:* Junius, "Office Cat" https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/85995624/, The Daily Freeman [Kingston, NY] (30 December 1936), p. 6 <br class="br">Misattributed
“The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.”
Harriet Beecher Stowe (1811–1896) Abolitionist, author
Source: Little Foxes (1865), Ch. 3.
Source: Little Foxes: Or, the Insignificant Little Habits Which Mar Domestic Happiness
Arthur C. Clarke (1917–2008) British science fiction writer, science writer, inventor, undersea explorer, and television series host
As quoted in Visions : How Science Will Revolutionize the Twenty-First Century (1999) by Michio Kaku, p. 295
2000s and attributed from posthumous publications
“Memories warm you up from the inside. But they also tear you apart.”
Haruki Murakami book Kafka on the Shore
Source: Kafka on the Shore
“Every saint has a past. Every sinner has a future.”
Warren Buffett (1930) American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist
“but back then, in those first days, I was so alone that every day was like eating my own heart.”
Junot Díaz book This Is How You Lose Her
Source: This Is How You Lose Her
“I am nobody! Who are you? Are you a nobody, too?”
Emily Dickinson (1830–1886) American poet
The Complete Poems of Emily Dickinson (1960)
Variant: 288: I'm Nobody! Who are you?
I'm Nobody! Who are you?
Are you — Nobody — Too?
Stephen Chbosky book The Perks of Being a Wallflower
Variant: Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn't stop for anybody.
Source: The Perks of Being a Wallflower
“Percy let me go, she croaked. You can't pull me up.
Never”
Rick Riordan The Mark of Athena
Source: The Mark of Athena
“Sorrow looks back, Worry looks around, Faith looks up”
Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882) American philosopher, essayist, and poet
“The tragedy of life is not so much what
men suffer, but rather what they miss.”
Thomas Carlyle (1795–1881) Scottish philosopher, satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher
“What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.”
Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity
Variant: What a sad era when it is easier to smash an atom than a prejudice.
“Fare thee well, and if for ever
Still for ever fare thee well.”
George Gordon Byron (1788–1824) English poet and a leading figure in the Romantic movement
Fare Thee Well http://readytogoebooks.com/LB-FTW46.htm, st. 1 (1816). <br class="br">Context: Fare thee well! and if forever,<br>Still forever, fare thee well:<br>Even though unforgiving, never<br>'Gainst thee shall my heart rebel.
Alain de Botton book The Consolations of Philosophy
Source: The Consolations of Philosophy (2000), Chapter III, Consolation For Frustration, p. 80.
Context: Though the terrain of frustration may be vast — from a stubbed toe to an untimely death — at the heart of every frustration lies a basic structure: the collision of a wish with an unyielding reality.
“When she is happy, she can't stop talking, when she is sad she doesn't say a word.”
Ann Brashares book Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
Source: Girls in Pants: The Third Summer of the Sisterhood
“When you come back you will not be you. And I may not be I.”
E.M. Forster (1879–1970) English novelist
Source: The Life to Come and Other Stories
“Worry never robs tomorrow of its sorrow, it only saps today of its joy.”
Leo Buscaglia (1924–1998) Motivational speaker, writer
“I am older at twenty than a lot of people who have died.”
William Faulkner book Absalom, Absalom!
Source: Absalom, Absalom!
“The visionaries of yesterday are the realists of today.”
Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)
Discussion with his predecessor Helmut Schmidt in 'Die Zeit' (1998)
“Depression is the inability to construct a future.”
Rollo May book Love and Will
Source: Love and Will (1969), p. 243
“To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.”
Dorothy Thompson (1893–1961) American journalist and radio broadcaster
A comment regarding her divorce from Sinclair Lewis, quoted by Vincent Sheean in Dorothy and Red (1963)
“The business of business is business.”
Alfred P. Sloan (1875–1966) American businessman
Widely attributed to Milton Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
Clement Freud (1924–2009) English broadcaster, writer, politician and chef
The Observer (1964-12-27)
Misattributed to George Bernard Shaw on The West Wing, Season 2, Episode 14: The War At Home. Fictional President Bartlett, smoking a cigarette, spoke the second half of the quote and attributed it to Shaw. His chief of staff disputed whether it was Shaw, and the President concurred.
“One must not let oneself be overwhelmed by sadness.”
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1929–1994) public figure, First Lady to 35th U.S. President John F. Kennedy
Quoted in The Unknown Wisdom of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (1994) edited by Bill Adler
“We never taste a perfect joy;
Our happiest successes are mixed with sadness.”
Pierre Corneille book Le Cid
Jamais nous ne goûtons de parfaite allégresse:
Nos plus heureux succès sont mêlés de tristesse.
Don Diègue, act III, scene v.
Le Cid (1636)
“The business of business is business.”
Milton Friedman (1912–2006) American economist, statistician, and writer
Widely attributed to Friedman, and sometimes cited as being in his work Capitalism and Freedom (1962) this is also attributed to Alfred P. Sloan, sometimes with citation of a statement of 1964, but sometimes with attestations to his use of it as a motto as early as 1923.
Disputed
“What need is there to weep over parts of life? The whole of it calls for tears.”
Seneca the Younger (-4–65 BC) Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, and dramatist
From Moral Essays: Ad Marciam De Consolatione http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Marcia.html (trans. J. W. Basore) <br class="br">Other works
“Time does not heal all wounds; there are those that remain painfully open.”
Elie Wiesel (1928–2016) writer, professor, political activist, Nobel Laureate, and Holocaust survivor
A Jew Today (1978)
Merle Shain (1935–1989) Canadian writer
Some Men are More Perfect Than Others (1973)
François de La Rochefoucauld book Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims
Il n’y a point de déguisement qui puisse longtemps cacher l’amour où il est, ni le feindre où il n’est pas.
Maxim 70.
Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims (1665–1678)
“Sometimes, only one person is missing, and the whole world seems depopulated.”
Alphonse de Lamartine L'Isolement
"L'Isolement", Méditations Poétiques (1820)
“Absence from whom we love is worse than death,
And frustrate hope severer than despair.”
William Cowper (1731–1800) (1731–1800) English poet and hymnodist
"Hope, like the short-lived ray that gleams awhile", line 35.
“I think I have learned that the best way to lift one's self up is to help someone else.”
Booker T. Washington (1856–1915) African-American educator, author, orator, and advisor
The Story of My Life and Work, vol. I (1900), ch. XV: Cuban Education and the Chicago Peace Jubilee Address http://web.archive.org/20071031084035/www.historycooperative.org/btw/Vol.1/html/126.html
“Delicious tears! the heart's own dew.”
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (1802–1838) English poet and novelist
The Guerilla Chief
The Improvisatrice (1824)
“Life is not living, but living in health.”
Vita non est vivere, sed valera vita est.
Martial book Epigrammata
VI, 70.
Variant translations:
It is not life to live, but to be well.
Life's not just being alive, but being well.
Epigrams (c. 80 – 104 AD)
