Finding the right words to comfort someone grieving can feel overwhelming. Sympathy quotes offer a gentle way to express your condolences and show you care during their most difficult moments.
Whether you’re writing a sympathy card, sending a text, or simply searching for words that honor their pain, these heartfelt quotes will help you share compassion when it matters most.
Classic Sympathy Quotes for Loss of a Loved One
❝ Grief is the price we pay for love. ❞
➣ Queen Elizabeth II
❝ What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us. ❞
➣ Helen Keller
❝ Death leaves a heartache no one can heal; love leaves a memory no one can steal. ❞
➣ Irish Headstone Inscription
❝ The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss, but you will learn to live with it. ❞
➣ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
❝ Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Unable are the loved to die, for love is immortality. ❞
➣ Emily Dickinson
❝ Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life. ❞
➣ Anne Roiphe
❝ The pain passes, but the beauty remains. ❞
➣ Pierre-Auguste Renoir
❝ When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer is God. ❞
➣ Fyodor Dostoevsky
❝ Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through. ❞
➣ Eskimo Proverb
❝ The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living. ❞
➣ Marcus Tullius Cicero
Short Sympathy Quotes for Cards and Messages
❝ Your life was a blessing, your memory a treasure, you are loved beyond words and missed beyond measure. ❞
➣ Renee Wood
❝ So loved, so missed, so very dear. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Forever in our hearts. ❞
➣ Traditional
❝ Gone from our sight, but never from our hearts. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Those we hold closest to our hearts never truly leave us. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ May loving memories bring you peace. ❞
➣ Traditional
❝ Thinking of you during this difficult time. ❞
➣ Traditional
❝ With deepest sympathy and heartfelt condolences. ❞
➣ Traditional
❝ May beautiful memories comfort you now and in the days ahead. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ An angel in heaven, forever in our hearts. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Your loved one’s light will never fade. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Love never dies, it only changes form. ❞
➣ Unknown
Comforting Sympathy Quotes About Grief and Healing
❝ Grief is love with no place to go. ❞
➣ Jamie Anderson
❝ There is no grief like the grief that does not speak. ❞
➣ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
❝ Tears are the silent language of grief. ❞
➣ Voltaire
❝ It’s so curious: one can resist tears and ‘behave’ very well in hardest hours of grief. But then someone makes you a friendly sign, and you fall to pieces. ❞
➣ C.S. Lewis
❝ Grief never ends, but it changes. It’s a passage, not a place to stay. ❞
➣ Holly C. Corbett
❝ Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief. ❞
➣ Leo Tolstoy
❝ The only cure for grief is to grieve. ❞
➣ Earl Grollman
❝ Grief is the last act of love we have to give to those we loved. Where there is deep grief, there was great love. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break. ❞
➣ William Shakespeare
❝ Healing doesn’t mean the damage never existed. It means the damage no longer controls your life. ❞
➣ Akshay Dubey
❝ You will survive, and you will find purpose in the chaos. Moving on doesn’t mean letting go. ❞
➣ Mary VanHaute
❝ The risk of love is loss, and the price of loss is grief. But the pain of grief is only a shadow when compared with the pain of never risking love. ❞
➣ Hilary Stanton Zunin
Sympathy Quotes for Remembering Someone Special
❝ Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity. ❞
➣ Terri Guillemets
❝ What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness. ❞
➣ Thomas Bailey Aldrich
❝ Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow. ❞
➣ Robert Louis Stevenson
❝ A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again. ❞
➣ Maya Angelou
❝ The song is ended, but the melody lingers on. ❞
➣ Irving Berlin
❝ Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful. ❞
➣ Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
❝ To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. ❞
➣ Thomas Campbell
❝ They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. ❞
➣ William Penn
❝ There are some who bring a light so great to the world that even after they have gone, the light remains. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ Someone lives on as long as someone lives who remembers them. ❞
➣ Unknown
❝ The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. ❞
➣ Helen Keller
❝ Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come. ❞
➣ Rabindranath Tagore
Conclusion
Sympathy quotes give voice to feelings that often seem impossible to express. The most meaningful condolence message comes from the heart, whether you use these quotes word-for-word or let them inspire your own personal words.
What matters most is that you reached out and showed someone in grief that they are not alone.
FAQ’s
What is the best sympathy message?
The best sympathy message acknowledges their pain, mentions their loved one by name, and offers specific support like “I’m bringing dinner Thursday” rather than vague “let me know if you need anything.”
What is a good sympathy quote?
A good sympathy quote is one that feels authentic to you and appropriate for your relationship with the grieving person—something like “Those we love don’t go away, they walk beside us every day.”
What is the most comforting quote?
The most comforting quote often depends on the person, but many find solace in “Grief is the price we pay for love” because it validates their pain as a reflection of deep love.
What are comfort words for grief?
Comfort words for grief include phrases like “I’m here for you,” “Take all the time you need,” “Your feelings are valid,” and “I’m thinking of you and your family during this heartbreaking time.”
What is an uplifting grieving quote?
An uplifting grieving quote offers hope while honoring the loss, such as “What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness” by Thomas Bailey Aldrich or “The pain passes, but the beauty remains.”
What is a short message for comfort and strength?
A short message for comfort and strength could be “Sending you love and strength during this difficult time” or “May cherished memories bring you peace and comfort in the days ahead.”
At NarcissistQuotes.com, Elizabeth Taylor curates powerful, thought-provoking quotes that expose narcissistic behavior, promote self-awareness, and support emotional healing. Her work is dedicated to helping readers recognize toxic patterns and reclaim their inner strength.