Pierre Auguste Renoir

The pain passes, but the beauty remains.


Emily Dickinson

Bereavement in their death to feel
Whom We have never seen—
A Vital Kinsmanship import
Our Soul and theirs—between—

For Stranger—Strangers do not mourn—
There be Immortal friends
Whom Death see first—’tis news of this
That paralyze Ourselves—

Who, vital only to Our Thought—
Such Presence bear away
In dying—’tis as if Our Souls
Absconded—suddenly—


Mark Twain

The secret source of humour itself is not joy, but sorrow. There is no humour in heaven.


Kahlil Gibran

… joy and sorrow are inseparable. . . together they come and when one sits alone with you . . . remember that the other is asleep upon your bed.


Kahlil Gibran

We choose our joys and sorrows long before we experience them.


Kahlil Gibran

The deeper that sorrow carves into your being the more joy you can contain. Is not the cup that holds your wine the very cup that was burned in the potter’s oven?


Henri Nouwen

When we honestly ask ourselves which person in our lives means the most us, we often find that it is those who, instead of giving much advice, solutions, or cures, have chosen rather to share our pain and touch our wounds with a gentle and tender hand. The friend who can be silent with us in a moment of despair or confusion, who can stay with us in an hour of grief and bereavement, who can tolerate not knowing, not curing, not healing and face with us the reality of our powerlessness, that is a friend who cares.


Emily Dickinson

My life closed twice before its close;
It yet remains to see
If Immortality unveil
A third event to me,
So huge, so hopeless to conceive,
As these that twice befell.
Parting is all we know of heaven,
And all we need of hell.


Emily Dickinson

Parting is all we know of heaven and all we need of hell.


Edith Wharton

There’s no such thing as old age, there is only sorrow.


Ecclesiastes

For everything there is a season,
And a time for every matter under heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die;
A time to plant, and a time to pluck up what is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
A time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
A time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to throw away stones, and a time to gather stones together;
A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to seek, and a time to lose;
A time to keep, and a time to throw away;
A time to tear, and a time to sew;
A time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate,
A time for war, and a time for peace.

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8


Dorothy Parker

As only New Yorkers know, if you can get through the twilight, you’ll live through the night.


Colette

I love my past. I love my present. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve had, and I’m not sad because I have it no longer.


Carl Jung

There are as many nights as days, and the one is just as long as the other in the year’s course. Even a happy life cannot be without a measure of darkness, and the word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.


Anne Bradstreet

If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.


Aeschylus

There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.