Saddening Quotes

Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging. ~ Henry David Thoreau

I know of nothing uglier or more saddening than a machine-flailed hedge. It speaks of the disdain of nature and craft that still dominates our agriculture. ~ Roger Deakin

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening
I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. ~ Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

Communism...muat of necessity be a saddening process for anyone who has ever tasted the intellectual pleasures of the world we live in. ~ F Scott Fitzgerald

I don't understand how teens in this generation stress being in a relationship/love more than adults do about their future. She's testing him to see if he's loyal, he's testing her to see if she's after money. So, basically it's a messed up-stressed-testing generation. Love has been blown so far out of proportion I reckon. The stress surrounding the single sentence 'I love you' is saddening. Relax!!! You're young! Your teen years are supposed to be fun. You have your whole lives ahead to find the right one. Just sit back, chill and live life the way it comes. ~ Manasa Rao

The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain. ~ Samuel Beckett

The sawdust flew. A slightly sweet fragrance floated in the immediate area. It was a sweet but subtle aroma, neither the scent of pine nor willow, but one from the past that had been forgotten, only to reappear now after all these years, fresher than ever. The workmen occasionally scooped up a handful of sawdust, which they put into their mouths and swallowed. Before that they had chewed on pieces of green bark that they had stripped from the cut wood. It had the same fragrance and it freshened their mouths, so at first that was what they had used. Now even though they were no longer chewing the bark with which they felt such a bond, the stack of corded wood was a very appealing sight. From time to time they gave the logs a friendly slap or kick. Each time they sawed off a section, which rolled to the ground from the sawhorse, they would say:

'Off with you - go over there and lie down where you belong.'

What they were thinking was that big pieces of lumber like this should be used to make tables or chairs or to repair a house or make window frames; wood like this was hard to find.

But now they were cutting it into kindling to be burned in stoves, a sad ending for good wood like this. They could see a comparison with their own lives, and this was a saddening thought. ("North China") ~ Xiao Hong

He saw the delicate blades of grass which the bodies of his comrades had fertilized; he saw the little shoots on the shell-shocked trees. He saw the smoke-puffs of shrapnel being blown about by light breezes. He saw birds making love in the wire that a short while before had been ringing with flying metal. He heard the pleasant sounds of larks up there, near the zenith of the trajectories. He smiled a little. There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd. ~ Humphrey Cobb

And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess. ~ Thornton Wilder

All I hope for is one moment of rational thought and a shot at action before I'm lost to a great saddening madness, pithed at the hands of my own stumbling biology.

[Johnny Truant] ~ Mark Z. Danielewski

It all comes back. Perhaps it is difficult to see the value in having one's self back in that kind of mood, but I do see it; I think we are well advised to keep on nodding terms with the people we used to be, whether we find them attractive company or not. Otherwise they turn up unannounced and surprise us, come hammering on the mind's door at 4 a.m. of a bad night and demand to know who deserted them, who betrayed them, who is going to make amends. We forget all too soon the things we thought we could never forget. We forget the loves and the betrayals alike, forget what we whispered and what we screamed, forget who we were. I have already lost touch with a couple of people I used to be; one of them, a seventeen-year-old, presents little threat, although it would be of some interest to me to know again what it feels like to sit on a river levee drinking vodka-and-orange-juice and listening to Les Paul and Mary Ford and their echoes sing "How High the Moon" on the car radio. (You see I still have the scenes, but I no longer perceive myself among those present, no longer could ever improvise the dialogue.) The other one, a twenty-three-year-old, bothers me more. She was always a good deal of trouble, and I suspect she will reappear when I least want to see her, skirts too long, shy to the point of aggravation, always the injured party, full of recriminations and little hurts and stories I do not want to hear again, at once saddening me and angering me with her vulnerability an ~ Joan Didion

A life is similar to a book. Some chapters are boring,a few emotional, a handful memorable,others saddening,one or two thoughtful and many full of smiles. ~ Elizabeth Adeniyi

It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy. ~ Thomas Huxley

It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous. ~ John Steinbeck

You can't evade a thing. Those who try to get around it are weak. Those who meet it gallantly are strong. So many women try to dodge life. They don't economize because it's inconvenient. They don't work because it's tiring. They don't have a child because it's painful. They don't look at the dead because it's saddening. Face them all, Laura. Face them squarely and meet them gallantly... as your grandmother did. For every one of the old experiences will be there... birth... marriage... death... disappointment... grief... little joys... little sorrows. You'll have to meet them all. It's part of the story... ~ Bess Streeter Aldrich

If anger arises in the mind in response to an outside event, it's helpful to look for either the saddening or frightening aspect of that event and then take whatever measures we can to address the sadness or the fear. Knowing that negativity or aversion is a transient energy never means to ignore it. It means to see it clearly, always, and work with it wisely [p. 85]. ~ Sylvia Boorstein

Philippine President Joseph Estrada said he was saddened by the conviction. It's very unfortunate and what happened is saddening, ... If he really is innocent, then the day will come that his name will be cleared. ~ Joseph Estrada

To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air. ~ William Morris

All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked. Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows, These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave nothing better to expect. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Cormorant fishing:
How stirring,
How saddening ~ Basho Matsuo

He lived decades ago,
she lives at the moment.
A very saddening reality for her. ~ S G

A picture neither saddening nor gladdening I fear; neither beautiful nor ugly. ~ Jean Cocteau

No longer trusting someone is even more saddening if you still love them. ~ Mokokoma Mokhonoana