Past Sorrow Quotes

No doubt you are right ... there would be far less suffering amongst mankind if men ... did not employ their imaginations so assiduously in recalling the memory of past sorrow, instead of bearing their present lot with equanimity. ~ Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe

Life is fragile and temporary. The faces of today quickly become the faces of the past. Sorrow, pain, and anger ... it all fades-
except love. Love is forever and there after, even when we've fallen to our graves. ~ Lee Argus

But the memory of past sorrow
is it not present joy? ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Those happy memories now added to my sorrows. ~ Melita Tessy

Repentance isn't only sorrow for past sins, it's also a determination to now do the will of God as He reveals it to us ~ Aiden Wilson Tozer

But as, in ethics, evil is a consequence of good, so, in fact, out of joy is sorrow born. Either the memory of past bliss is the anguish of today, or the agonies which are have their origin in the ecstasies which might have been. ~ Edgar Allan Poe

Regrets are as personal as fingerprints. ~ Margaret Culkin Banning

I think the French have come to grips with their past, and that was true up until about - until the '70s. And then there were things like the film "The Sorrow And The Pity." ~ Robert O. Paxton

Do not be ready to listen to anyone who is ready to show you your past mistakes instead, be ready to listen to someone who is ready to show you the untold lessons from your past mistakes so that you may be able to skip your future mistakes ~ Ernest Agyemang Yeboah

Present unhappiness is selfish; past sorrow is compassionate. ~ Philibert Joseph Roux

An hour will come, with pleasure to relate Your sorrows past, as benefits of Fate. ~ John Dryden

It's going to be so wonderful you're going to forget about all your troubles in the past! It's going to be so wonderful you're going to forget about all these things that happened before, those terrible things you've been through! Hallelujah? It will be worth it all when we see Jesus! Life's trials will seem so small, when we see Christ! One glimpse of His dear face, all sorrow will erase! So bravely run the race, 'til we see Christ! ~ David Berg

The leaf has the appearance of being born and dying, but it is not caught in either. The leaf falls to the earth without any idea of dying, and is born again by decomposing at the foot of the tree and nourishing the tree. The cloud has the appearance of dying in becoming rain, but it feels no sorrow or pain.
[...] When we have awakened understanding, birth is a continuation and death is a continuation[.] ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

When the evil deed, after it has become known, brings sorrow to the fool, then it destroys his bright lot, nay, it cleaves his head. ~ Max Muller

Happiness is lost by criticizing it; sorrow by accepting it. ~ Ambrose Bierce

How gaily and lightly these people I met carried their radiant heads, and swung themselves through life as through a ball-room! There was no sorrow in a single look I met, no burden on any shoulder, perhaps not even a clouded thought, not a little hidden pain in any of the happy souls. And I, walking in the very midst of these people, young and newly-fledged as I was, had already forgotten the very look of happiness. I hugged these thoughts to myself as I went on, and found that a great injustice had been done me. Why had the last months pressed so strangely hard on me? I failed to recognize my own happy temperament, and I met with the most singular annoyances from all quarters. I could not sit down on a bench by myself or set my foot any place without being assailed by insignificant accidents, miserable details, that forced their way into my imagination and scattered my powers to all the four winds. A dog that dashed by me, a yellow rose in a man's buttonhole, had the power to set my thoughts vibrating and occupy me for a length of time. ~ Knut Hamsun

He that is thy friend indeed,
He will help thee in thy need:
If thou sorrow, he will weep;
If thou wake, he cannot sleep:
Thus of every grief in heart
He with thee doth bear a part.
These are certain signs to know
Faithful friend from flattering foe. ~ William Shakespeare

The truth is, that the concept of God which I had always entertained, and which I had accused Christians of teaching to the world, was a concept of a being who was simply impossible. He was infinite and yet finite; perfect and imperfect; eternal and yet changing - subject to all the variations of emotion, love, sorrow, hate, revenge, that men are prey to ...
What a relief it was for me, now, to discover not only that no idea of ours, let alone any image, could adequately represent God, but also that we should not allow ourselves to be satisfied with any such knowledge of Him. ~ Thomas Merton

Ever since, Kovai had been a trusted companion in her life who brought frolic, magic and romance to her formative years; a silent witness to her tales of joy and sorrow who was never reluctant to offer a shoulder to cry. ~ Neetha Joseph

Do not weep for those who have found Death's embrace early, for they weep for us that linger on in this mortal world of pain. ~ Stewart Stafford

But the storm-whipsers sound more pleased to me. Excited eve
~ N.D. Wilson

Patience makes lighter / What sorrow may not heal. ("sed levius fit patientia quidquid corrigere est nefas") ~ Horace

All sorrows are bearable, if there is bread. ~ Miguel De Cervantes

The time to read is any time: no apparatus, no appointment of time and place, is necessary. It is the only art which can be practiced at any hour of the day or night, whenever the time and inclination comes, that is your time for reading; in joy or sorrow, health or illness. ~ Holbrook Jackson

The young, thought Sharma, have this ability to suffer much in the time of grief, unlike the old who have seen enough sorrow and know it shall not stay forever. The young hardly know grief is like a thunderstorm. It comes whispering softly at first, a distant hum, a halo of vehemence in the sky, and then there is a sudden, violent, and copious outpouring; that drenches everything that comes in its way. It darkens the sky and turns every inch of green terrain dusky grey. But they don't realize its ferocity will become less with the lapse of time, and the sun will shine bright and warm, and wash the land golden, and no one would be able to tell there had been a storm. They scarcely understand this essential unfolding of grief isn't meant to last forever, and eventually, it shall come to pass. ~ Neena H. Brar

She was still looking down and she saw tears spill from her eyes and fall toward Damon's outstretched arms. Elena didn't know why she was crying, but part of it was sorrow for her ever having doubted him.
Because Damon wasn't just on her side. Unless she was wrong, he was willing to die for her - was courting death for her. ~ L.J.Smith

All was ended now, the hope, and the fear and the sorrow,
All the aching of the heart, the restless, unsatisfied longing,
All the dull, deep pain, and constant anguish of patience! ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

I have known sorrow-therefore I May laugh with you, O friend, more merrily Than those who never sorrowed upon earth And know not laughter's worth. I have known laughter-therefore I May sorrow with you far more tenderly Than those who never guess how sad a thing Seems merriment to one heart's suffering. ~ Theodosia Garrison

Wonderful art can spring from misery,I'm the last person to deny that.I'd go even further:the best works of art of all time are probably stemmed from the deep human sorrow or hellish frustration,the death of a loved one or a divorce and yes:jealousy.Heartache and impotence as the man-spring for making the unverifiable verifiable and for giving it face.How romantic,beautiful and especially useful pain and misery can be. ~ Esther Verhoef

All the sorrow, all the bitterness, all the sadness, I forget them and ignore them in the joy of working. ~ Camille Pissarro

But really, this is no great sorrow, particularly, you'll agree, when wine's imported duty-free. ~ Alexander Pushkin

Some day, in years to come, you will be wrestling with the great temptation, or trembling under the great sorrow of your life. But the real struggle is here, now, in these quiet weeks. Now it is being decided whether, in the day or your supreme sorrow or temptation, you shall miserably fail or gloriously conquer. Character cannot be made except by a steady, long-continued process. ~ Phillip Brooks

I wanted to pray for an hour, but I keep thinking and thinking, and always sick thoughts, and my head aches - what is the use of praying? - it's only a sin! It is strange, too, that I am not sleepy: in great, too great sorrow, after the first outbursts one is always sleepy. Men condemned to death, they say, sleep very soundly on the last night. And so it must be, it si the law of nature, otherwise their strength would not hold out ... I lay down on the sofa but I did not sleep ... ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

My wails of sorrow
are tormenting my soul ~ Jalaluddin Rumi

Anger, stress, tension, depression, sorrow, hate, fear - these things start to retreat. And for a filmmaker, having this negativity lift away is money in the bank. When you're suffering you can't create. ~ David Lynch

The heart, it still beats stoically in my ribcage, but it knows its time is up. Strange how the repository of one's existence is one's heart, when all the heart does is pump the blood through the body. Not the soul that puts the life force into the body. The soul is intangible, it floats beyond oneself. It returns, pulled back by threads of loves, old and new, of the lives connected with one, of the belief that no, it isn't time yet. The heart would beat on until the moment it decided it had done quite enough beating for a lifetime. A miracle organ, the heart, constantly beating through sickness, through health, through wakefulness, through sleep, through sorrow so terrible you think it would stop then and there, and through joy so intense you wish it would stop right then to freeze that moment forever. It beats on, regardless. And when it finally does stop, so does the body. Switched off, like a machine, the engine that powered it shuddering to a halt. The life force swirling away into the ethers, wherever it was that life forces went after the body had perished. Right now I am alive. The heart is beating, the soul is still restless, the feeling that there is more to come niggles. What more though, I don't know. ~ Kiran Manral

But Mary had not come into the world to be sad or to help another to be sad. Sorrowful we may often have to be, but to indulge in sorrow is either not to know or to deny God our Saviour. True, her heart ached for Letty; and the ache immediately laid itself as close to Letty's ache as it could lie; but that was only the advance-guard of her army of salvation, the light cavalry of sympathy: the next division was help; and behind that lay patience, and strength, and hope, and faith,and joy. This last, modern teachers, having failed to regard it as a virtue, may well decline to regard as a duty; but he is a poor Christian indeed in whom joy has not at least a growing share, and Mary was not a poor Christian--at least, for the time she had been learning, and as Christians go in the present aeon of their history. ~ George MacDonald

At Night on the High Seas
At night, when the sea cradles me
And the pale star gleam
Lies down on its broad waves,
Then I free myself wholly
From all activity and all the love
And stand silent and breathe purely,
Alone, alone cradled by the sea
That lies there, cold and silent, with a thousand lights.
Then I have to think of my friends
And my gaze sinks into their eyes,
And I ask each one, silent and alone:
"Are you still mine?
Is my sorrow a sorrow to you, my death a death?
Do you feel from my love, my grief,
Just a breath, just an echo?"
And the sea peacefully gazes back, silent,
And smiles: NO
And no greetings and no answers come from anywhere. ~ Hermann Hesse

He paid two dollars and a half a month rent for the small room he got from his Portuguese landlady, Maria Silva, a virago and a widow, hard working and harsher tempered, rearing her large brood of children somehow, and drowning her sorrow and fatigue at irregular intervals in a gallon of the thin, sour wine that she bought from the corner grocery and saloon for fifteen cents. From detesting her and her foul tongue at first, Martin grew to admire her as he observed the brave fight she made. ~ Jack London

Everything we knew condemned us, and our questioning condemned us most of all. Knowledge was the way of our people, and knowledge was dangerous. It was the first thing that freed you and the thing that put you in peril. It was the key to the ten gates. I saw them clearly now, each and every one, the gates that were there for me. Ashes, Bones, Grass, Heart, Stone, Love, Sorrow, Blood, Earth, Sky. ~ Alice Hoffman

There is much pain that is quite noiseless; and vibrations that make human agonies are often a mere whisper in the roar of hurrying existence. There are glances of hatred that stab and raise no cry of murder; robberies that leave man or woman forever beggared of peace and joy, yet kept secret by the sufferer - committed to no sound except that of low moans in the night, seen in no writing except that made on the face by the slow months of suppressed anguish and early morning tears. Many an inherited sorrow that has marred a life has been breathed into no human ear. ~ George Eliot

Joy and sorrow are the light and shade of life; without light and shade no picture is clear. ~ Hazrat Inayat Khan

The world was not to be trusted. Loved persons were always stolen. Dreams always squashed. That was life as she understood it. ~ David Anthony Durham

It's not that we grow old, I thought, but that we grow old in decline and discomfort, and these hardships are made worse by the awareness that nothing will improve. No coming days will dawn brighter than the last that dawned, and this sorrow is further deepened by a fear of death ... ~ Thomas H. Cook

Siddhartha listened. He was now completely and utterly immersed in his listening, utterly empty, utterly receptive; he felt he had now succeeded in learning how to listen. He had heard all these things often now, these many voices in the river; today it sounded new. Already he could no longer distinguish the many voices, could not distinguish the gay from the weeping, the childish from the virile; they all belonged together, the yearning laments and the wise man's laughter, the cry of anger and the moans of the dying; they were all one, all of them interlinked and interwoven, bound together in a thousand ways. And all of this together - all the voices, all the goals, all the longing, all the suffering, all the pleasure, everything good and everything bad - all of it together was the world. All of it together was the river of occurrences, the music of life. And when Siddhartha listened attentively to this river, to this thousand-voiced song, when he listened neither for the sorrow nor for the laughter, when he did not attach his soul to any one voice and enter into it with his ego but rather heard all of them, heard the whole, the oneness - then the great song of the thousand voices consisted only of a single word: Om, perfection. ~ Hermann Hesse

You are entitled to feel all the bitterness and hatred you were taught. You are entitled to carry with you the pain and sorrow, the longing and disappointment. They will happily accompany you through life. Claim them if you will, but remember they are greedy, and their demands are many. You must be ready to pay the price they require.'
'The price?'
Nasnana sobered and nodded. 'Yes. There is always a price. Little by little these companions will steal away your joy, your peace of mind, your contentment. They will take your very heart and turn it to stone. ~ Tracie Peterson

The darkest hour of our struggle had become the hour of victory. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows. I ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

Every heart knows its own sorrow and the greatest casualty of war is to be forgotten, ~ Miguel Reece