Many great writers have reflected on death, grief and bereavement, and what it means to those left behind when a loved one departs.
Their words can echo our own feelings and express simply what we want to say.
We have collected some of these beautiful thoughts here to help you reflect on living and dying.
1
Say not in grief: “He is no more”, but live in thankfulness that he was.
Hebrew Proverb
2
There is no such thing as the pursuit of happiness, but there is the discovery of joy.
Joyce Grenfell
3
How strange this fear of death! We are never frightened at a sunset.
George MacDonald
4
When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him, lies on the paths of men.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
5
Every man must do two things alone; he must do his own believing and his own dying.
Martin Luther
6
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
Marcus Tulius Cicero
7
Thousands of candles can be lit from a single candle, and the life of the candle will not be shortened. Happiness never decreases by being shared.
Buddha
8
Death — the last sleep? No, the final awakening.
Walter Scott
9
Hope is the thing with feathers that perches in the soul.
Emily Dickenson
10
A death is not the extinguishing of a light,
but the putting out of the lamp because the dawn has come.
Rabindranath Tagore
11
It is nothing to die. It is frightful not to live
Victor Hugo
12
All that live must die, passing through nature to eternity.
William Shakespeare
13
Love is how you stay alive, even after you are gone.
Mitch Albom
14
Death is nothing else but going home to God, the bond of love will be unbroken for all eternity.
Mother Teresa
15
What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.
Helen Keller
16
Perhaps they are not stars but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones shines down to let us know they are happy
Traditional Eskimo saying
17
The grave is but a covered bridge, leading from light to light, through a brief darkness.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
18
The song is ended but the melody lingers on…
Irving Berlin
19
Grief is the price we pay for love.
Queen Elizabeth II
20
Death is the veil which those who live call life; They sleep, and it is lifted.
Percy Bysshe Shelley
