Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Grief
Why wilt thou add to all the griefs I suffer
Imaginary ills, and fancy’d tortures?
Addison—Cato. Act IV. Sc. 1.
O, brothers! let us leave the shame and sin
Of taking vainly in a plaintive mood,
The holy name of Grief—holy herein,
That, by the grief of One, came all our good.
E. B. Browning—Sonnets. Exaggeration.
Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer not
More grief than ye can weep for. That is well—
That is light grieving!
E. B. Browning—Tears.
Nullus dolor est quem non longinquitas temporis minuat ac molliat.
There is no grief which time does not lessen and soften.
Cicero—Epistles. IV. 5. Said by Servius Suplicius to Cicero.
Were floods of tears to be unloosed
In tribute to my grief,
The doves of Noah ne’er had roost
Nor found an olive-leaf.
Ibn Ezra.
In all the silent manliness of grief.
Goldsmith—Deserted Village. L. 384.
Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,
In all the raging impotence of woe.
Homer—Iliad. Bk. XXII. L. 526. Pope’s trans.
Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modus
Tam cari capitis?
What impropriety or limit can there be in our grief for a man so beloved?
Horace—Carmina. I. 24. 1.
On me, on me
Time and change can heap no more!
The painful past with blighting grief
Hath left my heart a withered leaf.
Time and change can do no more.
Richard Hengist Horne—Dirge.
Ponamus nimios gemitus: flagrantior æquo
Non debet dolor esse viri, nec vulnere major.
Let us moderate our sorrows. The grief of a man should not exceed proper bounds, but be in proportion to the blow he has received.
Juvenal—Satires. XIII. 11.
The only cure for grief is action.
G. H. Lewes—The Spanish Drama. Life of Lope De Vega. Ch. II.
Oh, well has it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak!
Longfellow—Hyperion. Bk. II. Ch. II.
Illa dolet vere qui sine teste dolet.
She grieves sincerely who grieves unseen.
Martial—Epigrams. I. 34. 4.
There is a solemn luxury in grief.
Wm. Mason—The English Garden. L. 596.
Se a ciascun l’interno affanno
Si leggesse in fronte scritto,
Quanti mai, che invidia fanno,
Ci farebbero pietà!
If our inward griefs were seen written on our brow, how many would be pitied who are now envied!
Metastasio—Giuseppe Riconosciuto. I.
What need a man forestall his date of grief,
And run to meet what he would most avoid?
Milton—Comus. L. 362.
Great, good, and just, could I but rate
My grief with thy too rigid fate,
I’d weep the world in such a strain
As it should deluge once again;
But since thy loud-tongued blood demands supplies
More from Briareus’ hands than Argus’ eyes,
I’ll sing thy obsequies with trumpet sounds
And write thy epitaph in blood and wounds.
Montrose. On Charles I.
Strangulat inclusus dolor, atque exæstuat intus,
Cogitur et vires multiplicare suas.
Suppressed grief suffocates, it rages within the breast, and is forced to multiply its strength.
Ovid—Tristium. V. 1. 63.
Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent.
Light griefs are communicative, great ones stupefy.
Seneca—Hippolytus. 607.
Levis est dolor qui capere consilium potest.
That grief is light which can take counsel.
Seneca—Medea. I. 55.
Magnus sibi ipse non facit finem dolor.
Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself.
Seneca—Troades. 786.
If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,
Thou robb’st me of a moiety.
All’s Well That Ends Well. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 68.
For grief is crowned with consolation.
Antony and Cleopatra. Act I. Sc. 2. L. 173.
O, grief hath chang’d me since you saw me last,
And careful hours with time’s deform’d hand
Have written strange defeatures in my face.
Comedy of Errors. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 297.
That we two are asunder; let that grieve him;
Some griefs are medicinable.
Cymbeline. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 32.
Great griefs, I see, medicine the less.
Cymbeline. Act IV. Sc. 2. L. 243.
Oft have I heard that grief softens the mind
And makes it fearful and degenerate.
Henry VI. Pt. II. Act IV. Sc. 4. L. 1.
What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,
That made them do it.
Julius Cæsar. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 216.
For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop.
King John. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 69.
I am not mad; I would to heaven I were!
For then, ’tis like I should forget myself:
O, if I could, what grief should I forget!
King John. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 48.
Grief fills the room up of my absent child,
Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me,
Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words,
Remembers me of all his gracious parts,
Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form;
Then, have I reason to be fond of grief?
King John. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 93.
But then the mind much sufferance doth o’erskip,
When grief hath mates.
King Lear. Act III. Sc. 6. L. 113.
Every one can master a grief but he that has it.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 29.
Men
Can counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,
Their counsel turns to passion, which before
Would give preceptial medicine to rage,
Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,
Charm ache, with air and agony with words.
Much Ado About Nothing. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 20.
Nor doth the general care
Take hold on me, for my particular grief
Is of so flood-gate and o’erbearing nature
That it engluts and swallows other sorrows
And it is still itself.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 54.
When remedies are past, the griefs are ended
By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended.
Othello. Act I. Sc. 3. L. 202.
Each substance of a grief hath twenty shadows,
Which shows like grief itself, but is not so;
For sorrow’s eye, glazed with blinding tears,
Divides one thing entire to many objects.
Richard II. Act II. Sc. 2. L. 14.
You may my glories and my state depose,
But not my griefs; still am I king of those.
Richard II. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 192.
My grief lies all within;
And these external manners of laments
Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
That swells with silence in the tortur’d soul.
Richard II. Act IV. Sc. 1. L. 295.
Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,
Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prest
With more of thine.
Romeo and Juliet. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 193.
Some griefs show much of love;
But much of grief shows still some want of wit.
Romeo and Juliet. Act III. Sc. 5. L. 73.
My grief lies onward and my joy behind.
Sonnet L.
Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,
He takes false shadows for true substances.
Titus Andronicus. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 79.
But I have
That honourable grief lodg’d here which burns
Worse than tears drown.
Winter’s Tale. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 110.
What’s gone and what’s past help
Should be past grief.
Winter’s Tale. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 223.
Winter is come and gone,
But grief returns with the revolving year.
Shelley—Adonais. St. 18.
Dark is the realm of grief: but human things
Those may not know of who cannot weep for them.
Shelley—Otho. (A projected poem.)
“Oh, but,” quoth she, “great griefe will not be tould,
And can more easily be thought than said.”
Spenser—Faerie Queene. Bk. I. Canto VII. St. 41.
He gave a deep sigh; I saw the iron enter into his soul.
Sterne—Sentimental Journey. The Captive.
Nulli jactantius mœrent quam qui maxime lætantur.
None grieve so ostentatiously as those who rejoice most in heart.
Tacitus—Annales. II. 77.
Men are we, and must grieve when even the Shade
Of that which once was great is passed away.
Wordsworth—On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic.