Sorrow Quotes

Sorrow makes for sincerity, I think. ~ Tennessee Williams

Sometimes sorrow, sometimes joy. But beneath it all remember the innate perfection of your life unfolding. That is the secret of unreasonable happiness. ~ Dan Millman

A withered maple leaf has left its branch and is falling to the ground; its movements resemble those of a butterfly in flight. Isn't it strange? The saddest and deadest of things is yet so like the gayest and most vital of creatures? ~ Ivan Turgenev

This is my family, and the noise around me is soothing in a way it hasn't been in quite a long time. That's mostly my doing, I know, given my self-imposed exile in the Land of Sorrow. But hearing the overlapping voices and laughter, seeing the bright eyes and smiles, does more for me than I thought it could. ~ T.J. Klune

For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy? ~ Walt Whitman

The care of God for us is a great thing, if a man believe it at heart: it plucks the burden of sorrow from him. ~ Euripides

Nor can thy shame give physic to my grief;
Though thou repent, yet I have still the loss:
The offender's sorrow lends but weak relief
To him that bears the strong offence's cross. ~ William Shakespeare

One day the wickedness of the kings of the world would destroy us, oh sorrow, and armies of the world would march upon us, wailing, and the purest of the children of God would have to deliver themselves unto the Lord by their own hand.
The Deliverance. ~ Chuck Palahniuk

There is scarcely a single joy or sorrow within the experience of our fellow-creatures which we have not tasted; yet the belief, in the good and beautiful has never forsaken us. It has been medicine to us in sickness, richness in poverty, and the best part of all that ever delighted us in health and success. ~ Leigh Hunt

Naught is possessed, neither gold, nor land nor love, nor life, nor peace, nor even sorrow nor death, nor yet salvation. Say of nothing: It is mine. Say only: It is with me. ~ D.H. Lawrence

They were living to themselves: self, with its hopes, and promises, and dreams, still had hold of them; but the Lord began to fulfill their prayers. They had asked for contrition, and He sent them sorrow; they had asked for purity, and He sent them thrilling anguish; they had asked to be meek, and He had broken their hearts; they has asked to be dead to the world, and He slew all their living hopes; they had asked to be made like unto Him, and He placed them in the furnace, sitting by "as a refiner of silver," till they should reflect His image; they had asked to lay hold of His cross, and when He had reached it out to them, it lacerated their hands. They had asked they knew not what, nor how; but He had taken them at their word, and granted them all their petitions. They were hardly willing to follow so far, or to draw so nigh to Him. They had upon them an awe and fear, as Jacob at Bethel, or Eliphaz in the night visions, or as the apostles when they thought they had seen the spirit, and knew not that it was Jesus. They could almost pray Him to depart from them, or to hide His awefulness. They found it easier to obey than to suffer--to do than to give up--to bear the cross than to hang upon it: but they cannot go back, for they have come too near the unseen cross, and its virtues have pierced too deeply within them. He is fulfilling to them his promise, "And I, if I be lifted up, will draw all men unto me.
But now, at last, their turn is come. Before, they had only hear ~ Elizabeth Payson Prentiss

To be wise was to be above joy and sorrow, fear and pity, ambition and humiliation. It was to hate nothing and to love nothing, and above all to be utterly indifferent to the love and hate of others. ~ Michael Ende

The immense joy in welcoming back the lost son hides the immense sorrow that has gone before. The ~ Henri J.M. Nouwen

There is no sorrow I have thought about more than that - to love what is great, and try to reach it, and yet to fail. ~ George Eliot

This world is all vanity. It is a tempest hurling us from one sorrow to another. ~ Jocelyn Murray

Oh, that was a good time, when I was unhappy. ~ Sophie Arnould

Embracing what is We're conditioned to believe that painful feelings are "bad" and that pleasurable ones are "good." It's often easier - though not healthier - for us to avoid grief and sorrow, while only embracing sensations like happiness, confidence, and love. ~ Sharon Salzberg

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

So, very soon our captives will meet their small countrywoman again. How grateful they must be to have a pleasant ride, with us to guide their way. Perhaps they feel that chains and sorrow are not too high a price to pay. What say you, Zanel? ~ Emily Rodda

Repentance is more than just sorrow for the past; repentance is a change of mind and heart, a new life of denying self and serving the Savior as king in self's place. ~ J.I. Packer

In existence you are body and mind, but in absolute you dissolve.
In existence there is sorrow; in absolute there is bliss.
In existence there is change; in absolute there is reality.
In existence you are known; in absolute you are energy
In existence you are thought, in absolute total awareness.
In existence you are matter, in absolute you are pure Spirit. ~ Gian Kumar

I had a strange feeling that Fate had in store for me exquisite joys and exquisite sorrows. ~ Oscar Wilde

Mankind, in all his lusts, punishes himself. The gods have to do very little. ~ Criss Jami

What makes American Elf so good is that it's incredibly personal and it runs the full spectrum from super-sickening sweetness to gut-wrenching terror and sorrow. It's a funny and powerful window into a real person's mind. ~ Tony Millionaire

The end for which we are created invites us to walk a road that is surely sown with a lot of thorns, but it is not sad; through even the sorrow, it is illuminated by joy. ~ Pier Giorgio Frassati

The absolute easiest thing to do is spend time, as often as one can, in tranquil or majestic nature. Look at butterflies. Walk barefoot in the sand. Put your feet in a clean, bubbling stream. Walk in a city park and feed the pigeons. Anything. Get out and take a walk. ~ Gary K. Smith

Amma Theodora said: A certain monk, afflicted by many sorrows, said to himself, "Leave this place." With these words he began to put his sandals on his feet, and suddenly he saw the devil in the form of a man sitting in the corner of his cell. The devil was also putting on his sandals. He said to the monk, "Are you leaving here because of me? Well then, wherever you go, I will be there before you." ~ Ignatius Bryanchaninov

Our days and nights have sorrows woven with delights. ~ Francois De Malherbe

An endless scream pierced the frigid night air and shook the world with its rage and sorrow. The aged stone and brick that had withstood the great quake over a hundred years ago now trembled before its pain, and even the austere grimace of the lonely grotesque, its only witness, softened in pity. ~ Ava Zavora

Beyond their immaculate design, the reason sharks rule the ocean is their complete indifference to everything except feeding, procreation, and defending their territory. The shark does not love. It feels no empathy. It trusts nothing. It lives in perfect harmony with its environment because it has no aspirations or desires. And no pity. A shark feels no sorrow, no remorse, hopes for nothing, dreams of nothing, has no illusions about itself or anything beyond itself. ~ Rick Yancey

He looked at her an instant, for the effect of the graceful girlish figure with pale, passionate face and dark eyes full of sorrow, pride and resolution was wonderfully enhanced by the gloom of the great room, and glimpses of a gathering storm in the red autumn sky. ~ Louisa May Alcott

Eternity, so understood, is not an extension of time, not even an indefinite time. It is, rather, a vertical dimension cutting through time at each of its moments. It is the confrontation with the full moon through the trees dark with the day's rain. It is the goodness of an act or the truth of a witness which avail nothing in the order of time, yet are still irreducibly good. It is the awareness of the intensity of the blue sky on a summer day.
…
The pain of the grief suffered by a loved one has a similar quality. It once was, and it is no more. There were events which led up to it, and events which followed it, and, for practical purposes, it makes every kind of sense to think of it in those terms, in the order of time. Yet there is another perspective that will not be denied: recognizing that grief in its purity, in its eternal validity before God. So, too, the beauty of the trillium or the goodness of a moral act which changed nothing and yet, for all eternity, stands out in its nobility. Humans are beings capable of perceiving all that. They are capable of perceiving the creation not only in the order of time but in the order of eternity, lifting up its moments out of time's passage into eternity in the eternal validity of truth, goodness, and beauty of their joy and sorrow. ~ Erazim V. Kohák

Music can minister to minds diseased, pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, raze out the written troubles of the brain, and with its sweet oblivious antidote, cleanse the full bosom of all perilous stuff that weighs upon the heart. ~ William Shakespeare

He will never let the trial surpass the strength He gives you, and at the very moment you think yourself overwhelmed by sorrow, He will lift you up and give you peace. ~ Rose Philippine Duchesne

Winter sunshine is a fairy wand touching everything with a strange magic. It is like the smile of a friend in time of sorrow. ~ Patience Strong

Ignoring the question is not the solution of problem,
Same as forgetting the sorrow isn't happiness ~ Sarthak Tiwari

Everything takes place at a right time. It's your anxiety to achieve everything before time or grab things more than you required, add misery to your life. ~ Roshan Sharma

Those who are held Wise among men and who search the reasons of things, are those who bring the most sorrow on themselves. ~ Euripides

Life goes on, after all, and one must always seek the lesson even through the sorrow. Never remain static; never stop collecting information. And ~ Elizabeth Gilbert

Oh, I'm developing a beautiful character! It droops a bit under cold and frost, but it does grow fast when the sun shines.
That's the way with everybody. I don't agree with the theory that adversity and sorrow and disappointment develop moral strength. The happy people are the ones who are bubbling over with kindliness. ~ Jean Webster

There was no gleam, no shadow, for the heavens, too, were one still, pale cloud; no sound or motion in anything but the dark river that flowed and moaned like an unresting sorrow. ~ George Eliot

You can find sorrow in the arithmetic, and you can find a bittersweet hope. ~ David Levithan

For, thought Ahab, while even the highest earthly felicities ever have a certain unsignifying pettiness lurking in them, but, at bottom, all heartwoes, a mystic significance, and, in some men, an archangelic grandeur; so do their diligent tracings-out not blue the obvious deduction. To trail the genealogies of these high mortal miseries, carries us at last among the sourceless primogenitures of the gods; so that, in the face of all the glad, hay-making suns, and the softcymballing, round the harvest-moons, we must needs give in to this: that the gods themselves are not for ever glad. The ineffaceable, sad birth-mark in the brow of man, is but the stamp of sorrow in the signers. ~ Herman Melville

I like you so much, Marianne said. Connell felt a pleasurable sorrow come over him, which brought him close to tears. Moments of emotional pain arrived like this, meaningless or at least indecipherable. Marianne lived a drastically free life, he could see that. He was trapped by various considerations. He cared what people thought of him. He even cared what Marianne thought, that was obvious now. ~ Sally Rooney

The flowers do fade, and wanton fields To wayward winter reckoning yields; A honey tongue, a heart of gall, Is fancy's spring, but sorrow's fall. ~ Walter Raleigh

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

Through strife the slumbering soul awakes, We learn on error's troubled route The truths we could not prize without The sorrow of our sad mistakes. ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

A song of despair


The memory of you emerges from the night around me.
The river mingles its stubborn lament with the sea.

Deserted like the dwarves at dawn.
It is the hour of departure, oh deserted one!

Cold flower heads are raining over my heart.
Oh pit of debris, fierce cave of the shipwrecked.

In you the wars and the flights accumulated.
From you the wings of the song birds rose.

You swallowed everything, like distance.
Like the sea, like time. In you everything sank!

It was the happy hour of assault and the kiss.
The hour of the spell that blazed like a lighthouse.

Pilot's dread, fury of blind driver,
turbulent drunkenness of love, in you everything sank!

In the childhood of mist my soul, winged and wounded.
Lost discoverer, in you everything sank!

You girdled sorrow, you clung to desire,
sadness stunned you, in you everything sank!

I made the wall of shadow draw back,
beyond desire and act, I walked on.

Oh flesh, my own flesh, woman whom I loved and lost,
I summon you in the moist hour, I raise my song to you.

Like a jar you housed infinite tenderness.
and the infinite oblivion shattered you like a jar.

There was the black solitude of the islands,
and there, woman of love, your arms took me in.

There was thirst and hunger, and you were the fruit.
Pablo Neruda

Experience everything;
Times of sorrow, times of Joy.
Times of darkness, times of light.
Times of lost heart, times of hope.
Times of hate, times of love.
Times of pain , times of peace.
Times of distress, times of dancing.
Times of sickness, times of recover of strength.
Times of lost, times of finding the way.
Times of wandering, times of wonder.
Times of failure, times of success.
Times of fall, times of rise.
Time of sowing, times of harvesting.
Times of injury , times of healing.
Times of waiting, times of fulfilled wish.
Times of praying, times of receiving the promise.
Times of ploughing, times of planting.
Times of dreaming, times of working to achieve the dream.
Times of doubt, times of Faith. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

Go, forget me! why should sorrow
O'er that brow a shadow fling?
Go, forget me, and to-morrow
Brightly smile and sweetly sing!
Smile, - though I shall not be near thee;
Sing, - though I shall never hear thee! ~ Charles Wolfe

I've always said the world is filled with as much wonder as sorrow. ~ Stephen Lloyd Jones

In the distance I hear a song - a simple song - a song of despair - a song of longing and a song of sorrow.
I have forgotten the words and the rhythm, but I sing.
Yes, I sing. ~ Pietros Maneos

Will he come to me, Dream Angus,
Come quietly through the evening light,
Come when I do not expect him, and I am sleepy,
Come when I am drowsy, when I am ready for rest;
Will he come to me, Dream Angus?
...
Will I see the birds about his head,
The birds that are his kisses?
Will I believe that each of us,
Even he who thinks himself unloved,
May be transformed, made different
By one who finds him marvellous? Will I think that?
...
Will he bring me some sort of quietus,
Some form of understanding; will he break my heart;
Will he show me my love; will he give
Me heart's contentment, the end of sorrow,
Will he do that for me; will he do that?
... ~ Alexander McCall Smith

Our culture has become increasingly intolerant of that acute sorrow, that intense mental anguish and deep remorse which may be defined as grief. We want to medicate such sorrow away. ~ Edward Hirsch

Time sped. And the poet through sorrow Became like his suffering kind. Again he toiled over his poems To lighten the grief of his mind ... ~ Ella Wheeler Wilcox

But that's what love is, isn't it? When it hurts you more to see someone suffer than it does to take the pain away? ~ Jodi Picoult

In submission we are at last free to value other people. Their dreams and plans become important to us. We have entered into a new, wonderful, glorious freedom, the freedom to give up our own rights for the good of others. For the first time we can love people unconditionally. We have given up the right for them to return our love. No longer do we feel we have to be treated in a certain way. We can rejoice with their successes. We feel genuine sorrow at their failures. It is of little consequence that our plans are frustrated, if their plans succeed. We discover that it is far better to serve our neighbor than to have our own way. ~ Richard J. Foster

So go back to the books. They will comfort you and cheer you. If you earnestly work with them, neither sorrow nor anxiety nor distress nor suffering need trouble your mind any more, no, not evermore. ~ Walter Wangerin Jr.

To-day is thine to spend, but not to-morrow; Counting on morrows breedeth bankrupt sorrow: O squander not this breath that Heaven hath lent thee; Make not too sure another breath to borrow. ~ Omar Khayyam

Sometimes we lose pieces of who we are in times of great sorrow and distress. And then we have to find a way to get them back. ~ Tracy Holczer

Sorrow must not be cultivated: it is a poor lifestyle choice. ~ Tarun J. Tejpal

Elron: These were happy woods. The entire place was happy from the house to the gardens to the woods. But this one little garden had something extra. It was excited. Something odd for plants and trees. They were prone to joy, happiness, sorrow and tranquility but not something as active as excitement. Someone had spent a lot of time here and a bit of their personality had seeped into the place. That someone was excited about life and probably young. Strange. Few youth of any race knew enough to transmit their feelings. The trees whispered about a person, moving and bending with change. The plants gossiped about tenderness shown them but the air breathed words of rage and despair in my ear. The plants didn't know gender but I got the impression of a woman, a young woman. The altar indicated she was a witch. A good witch. ~ N.E. Conneely

And as he was capable of giant joy, so did he harbor huge sorrow, so that when his dog died the world ended. ~ John Steinbeck

No man sympathizes with the sorrows of vanity. ~ Samuel Johnson

We all have a divine nature, and we have a thirst to become one with that divinity. That divinity lets us find meaning in life event at the pinnacle of happiness, lets us weep for the pain and sorrow of others, and lets us dream of a more beautiful world. (p. 154) ~ Ilchi Lee

A smile or a tear has not nationality; joy and sorrow speak alike to all nations, and they, above all the confusion of tongues, proclaim the brotherhood of man ~ Frederick Douglass

Through the blur, I wondered if I was alone or if other parents felt the same way I did - that everything involving our children was painful in some way. The emotions, whether they were joy, sorrow, love or pride, were so deep and sharp that in the end they left you raw, exposed and yes, in pain. The human heart was not designed to beat outside the human body and yet, each child represented just that - a parent's heart bared, beating forever outside its chest. ~ Debra Ginsberg

The evil, Sir, is enormous; the inevitable suffering incalculable. Do not stain the fair fame of the country ... Nations of dependent Indians, against their will, under color of law, are driven from their homes into the wilderness. You cannot explain it; you cannot reason it away ... Our friends will view this measure with sorrow, and our enemies alone with joy. And we ourselves, Sir, when the interests and passions of the day are past, shall look back upon it, I fear, with self-reproach, and a regret as bitter as unavailing. ~ Edward Everett

We are all such egotists that a sorrow or hardship - provided it is great enough - flatters our self-importance. We feel that a calamity by overtaking us has distinguished us above our fellows. A man likes not to be ignored even by a railway accident. A man with a grievance is always happy. ~ W.N.P. Barbellion

What are the sorrows of other men to us, and what their joy? ... ~ Daniel Defoe

Who ne'er his bread in sorrow ate, Who ne'er the mournful midnight hours Weeping upon his bed has sate, He knows you not, ye Heavenly Powers. ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Recently, one friend asked me, "How can I force myself to smile when I am filled with sorrow? It isn't natural." I told her she must be able to smile to her sorrow, because we are more than our sorrow. A human being is like a television set with millions of channels. If we turn the Buddha on, we are the Buddha. If we turn sorrow on then we are sorrow. If we turn a smile on, we really are the smile. We can not let just one channel dominate us. We have the seed of everything in us, and we have to seize the situation in our hand, to recover our own sovereignty. ~ Nhat Hanh

One thing was absolutely certain - it was a given for Kazuo. Although he might not have particularlyrealized it, or more appropriately, perhaps because he was incapable of coming to such a realization, this was what it came down to: he, Kazuo Kiriyama, felt no emotion, no guilt, no sorrow, no pity, towards the four corpses, including Mitsuru's - and that ever since the day he was dropped into this world theway he was, he had never once felt a single emotion. ~ Koushun Takami

Alas, I had always loved sorrow and grief, but only for myself, for myself; for them I wept in my pity. I stretched out my arms to them in my despair, accusing, cursing, and despising myself. I told them that I had done all this, I alone, that I had brought them corruption, contagion, and lies! ~ Fyodor Dostoyevsky

The universe is a complete unique entity. Everything and everyone is bound together with some invisible strings. Do not break anyone's heart; do not look down on weaker than you. One's sorrow at the other side of the world can make the entire world suffer; one's happiness can make the entire world smile. ~ Shams Tabrizi

If you have shed a thousand tears, expect a thousand blessings. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

Sorrow is humbling. I want my pain to be fabulous. I don't need my pain to be worse than anyone else's; I just want it to be strangely, uniquely mine. Art to someone else's breakdown.
- Thea Hillman, "Dear Kath After"
from the anthology Pills, Thrills, Chills, and Heartache ~ Clint Catalyst

Royal summoned mourners. They came from the village, from the neighboring hills and, wailing like dogs at midnight, laid siege to the house. Old women beat their heads against the walls, moaning men prostrated themselves: it was the art of sorrow, and those who best mimicked grief were much admired. After the funeral everyone went away, satisfied that they'd done a good job. ~ Truman Capote

Thou hast become dark and cannot hear me. When I die shall I not be like Enkidu? Sorrow enters my heart. I am afraid of death. ~ Anonymous

If you're saddened by another's sorrow, then sorrow will never come to you. If you are happy at another's joy then joy will never leave you. ~ Sri Sri Ravi Shankar

Sorrow, even when tempered by sweat and toil into a whisper weight of gold, is still sorrow. Worthless to us both in the end, Má. ~ Monique Truong

The weird, weird thing about devastating loss is that life actually goes on. When you're faced with a tragedy, a loss so huge that you have no idea how you can live through it, somehow, the world keeps turning, the seconds keep ticking. ~ James Patterson

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

She locked herself in her room. She needed time to get used to her maimed consciousness, her poor lopped life, before she could walk steadily to the place allotted her. A new searching light had fallen on her husband's character, and she could not judge him leniently: the twenty years in which she had believed in him and venerated him by virtue of his concealments came back with particulars that made them seem an odious deceit. He had married her with that bad past life hidden behind him, and she had no faith left to protest his innocence of the worst that was imputed to him. Her honest ostentatious nature made the sharing of a merited dishonor as bitter as it could be to any mortal.
But this imperfectly taught woman, whose phrases and habits were an odd patchwork, had a loyal spirit within her. The man whose prosperity she had shared through nearly half a life, and who had unvaryingly cherished her - now that punishment had befallen him it was not possible to her in any sense to forsake him. There is a forsaking which still sits at the same board and lies on the same couch with the forsaken soul, withering it the more by unloving proximity. She knew, when she locked her door, that she should unlock it ready to go down to her unhappy husband and espouse his sorrow, and say of his guilt, I will mourn and not reproach. But she needed time to gather up her strength; she needed to sob out her farewell to all the gladness and pride of her life. When she had resolved to go dow ~ George Eliot

Hatred and sorrow are power. They are yours to control. All you have to do is turn them into strength, and use that strength to move forward. ~ SebastiAn

Every time I go look for God amidst sorrow, I always find Jesus at the cross, in death and resurrection. This is our God. ~ Nadia Bolz-Weber

What signifies sadness, sir; a man grows lean on it. ~ Henry MacKenzie

Pain frees you from complacency.
Tears free you from sorrow.
Weaknesses free you from pride.
Adversity frees from boredom.
Challenges free you from monotony. ~ Matshona Dhliwayo

I tasted the salt on my own lips, and the bitter taste of blood on his. It was a desperate kiss, the sort of kiss that marks a lovers' parting, a kiss of sorrow and regret and a kind of blind and wordless promise. I would have risen up when it was finished, but he held me close, his hand stroking my hair. "I'll hurt your chest," I protested, but he shook his head. "I am past pain," he lied, "and I've always had a fancy to die in my lover's arms. 'Tis most romantic. ~ Susanna Kearsley

I have lived eighty years of life and know nothing for it, but to be resigned and tell myself that flies are born to be eaten by spiders and man to be devoured by sorrow. ~ Voltaire

Laughing Faces Do Not Mean That There Is Absence Of Sorrow! But It Means That They Have The Ability To Deal With It ~ William Shakespeare

To be loving is to be open to grief, to be touched by sorrow, even sorrow that is unending. ~ Bell Hooks

It is hard to be with another's pain if we cannot be with our own. Since I was a child I have always felt a deep sense of responsibility to ease others' pain. But I have discovered that often, beneath this genuine and admirable desire, lies an inability to be with my own sorrow. Several years ago, watching a close friend suffer when a brain aneurysm took away her life as she knew it, I wrote in my journal, I won't ask much. But if you would just let me save your life, perhaps it will not hurt so much to know I cannot save my own. ~ Oriah Dreamer

To be born in a duck's nest in a farmyard is of no consequence to a bird if it is hatched from a swan's egg. He now felt glad at having suffered sorrow and trouble, because it enabled him to enjoy so much better all the pleasure and happiness around him; for the great swans swam round the newcomer and stroked his neck with their beaks, as a welcome. ~ Hans Christian Andersen

Too unconcerned to love and too passionless to hate, too detached to be selfish and too lifeless to be unselfish, too indifferent to experience joy and too cold to express sorrow, they are neither dead nor alive; they merely exist. ~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

If you have never known happiness and sorrow, then you have not fully experience life. ~ Lailah Gifty Akita

THE SIMPLE UNION

Listen to me, O friend.

Be thou a yogi, a monk, a priest,
A devout lover of God,
A pilgrim searching for Happiness, Bathing in holy rivers,
Visiting sacred shrines,
The occasional worshipper of a day,
A great reader of books, Or a builder of many temples -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

This vain struggle,
This long toil,
This ceaseless sorrow,
This changing pleasure,
This burning doubt,
This burden of life,
All these will cease, O friend -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

Have I pilgrimage the earth,
Have I loved the reflections,
Have I chanted, singing in ecstasy,
Have I donned the robe,
Have I put on ashes,
Have I listened to the temple bells,
Have I grown old with study,
Have I searched,
Was I lost?
Yea, much have I known -
My love aches for thee.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved,

O friend,
Wouldst thou love the reflection,
If I can give thee the reality?
Throw away thy bells, thine incense,
Thy fears and thy gods,
Set aside thy systems, thy philosophies.
Come,
Put aside all these.
I know the way to the heart of the Beloved.

O friend,
The simple union is the best.

This is the way to the heart of the Beloved. ~ Anonymous

Isabel's indelible absence is now an organ in our bodies whose sole function is a continuous secretion of sorrow. ~ Aleksandar Hemon

There is sorrow enough in the natural way
From men and woman to fill our day;
But when we are certain of sorrow in store,
Why do we always arrange for more?
Brothers & Sisters, I bid you beware
Of giving your heart to a dog to tear. ~ Rudyard Kipling

When I talk to people about what makes us human, some people say it's our tears. Because we are the only ones who weep, only we can feel true sorrow. When I hear this, I remember Isiro's face, her anguished eyes as she cried for Mikeno, how she screamed at the keepers with her teeth bared and pushed at the poles. How she dashed back to his body and dug her fingers into his chest as if the strength of her grip could bring him back. There is sorrow without tears. Of course there is. ~ Vanessa Woods