Grief

thumb|right|A genuine faith lifts us above the bitterness of grief… ~ Arthur Henry Kenney Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions. While the terms are often used interchangeably, bereavement often refers to the state of loss, and grief to the emotional reaction to loss. Quotes thumb|But nothing that can be said can begin to take away the anguish and the pain of these moments. Grief is the price we pay for love. ~ Elizabeth II thumb|What is grief, if not love persevering? ~ Vision in WandaVision Why wilt thou add to all the griefs I sufferImaginary ills, and fancy'd tortures? Joseph Addison, Cato, A Tragedy (1713), Act IV, sc. 1. Acceptance is the better part of grief. Paula Gunn Allen, The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions 1 September 1992 Beacon Press 978-0-8070-4617-3 Chapter Two But what is grief, if not love persevering? Vision (played by Paul Bettany) in WandaVision Season 1 Episode 8 entiteled Previously On (February 26, 2021) I tell you, hopeless grief is passionless. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Grief, l. 1 (1844). 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. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Sonnets, Exaggeration. Thank God, bless God, all ye who suffer notMore grief than ye can weep for. That is well—That is light grieving! Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Tears. To say that a life is grievable is to claim that a life, even before it is lost, is, or will be, worthy of being grieved on the occasion of its loss; the life has value in relation to mortality. One treats a person differently if one brings the sense of the grievability of the other to one’s ethical bearing toward the other. If an other’s loss would register as a loss, would be marked and mourned, and if the prospect of loss is feared, and precautions are thus taken to safeguard that life from harm or destruction, then our very ability to value and safeguard a life depends upon an ongoing sense of its grievability—the conjectured future of a life as an indefinite potential that would be mourned were it cut short or lost. Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind 4 February 2020 Verso Books 978-1-78873-276-5 75 We are not yet speaking about equality if we have not yet spoken about equal grievability, or the equal attribution of grievability. Grievability is a defining feature of equality. Those whose grievability is not assumed are those who suffer inequality—unequal value. Judith Butler, The Force of Nonviolence: An Ethico-Political Bind 4 February 2020 Verso Books 978-1-78873-276-5 108 The heart which grief hath cankeredHath one unfailing remedy - the Tankard. Charles Stuart Calverley, Beer, from Verses and Translations (1862). 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 Sulplicius to Cicero. One often calms one's grief by recounting it. Pierre Corneille, Polyeucte, Act I, sc. 3 (1642) In much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow. Ecclesiastes 1:18 (KJV) Grief is the price we pay for love. Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, Message from the Queen, read by the British ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, St Thomas's Episcopal Church on Fifth Avenue. 22 September 2001. Also dating back to 1912 In all the silent manliness of grief. Oliver Goldsmith, The Deserted Village (1770), line 384. The mossy marbles restOn the lips that he has pressedIn their bloom,And the names he loved to hearHave been carved for many a yearOn the tomb. Oliver Wendell Holmes, "The Last Leaf", 4th stanza, in Poems (Boston: Otis, Broaders, and Company, 1836), p. 90. Grief tears his heart, and drives him to and fro,In all the raging impotence of woe. Homer, The Iliad, Book XXII, line 526. Pope's translation. Quis desiderio sit pudor aut modusTam 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 meTime 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 Henry Horne, Dirge. Grief and disappointment give rise to anger, anger to envy, envy to malice, and malice to grief again, till the whole circle be completed. David Hume, A Treatise of Human Nature, Book II, Part I, section 4 (1739-40) Ponamus nimios gemitus: flagrantior æquoNon 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 (early 2nd century), XIII. 11. Grieving is a sign of spiritual health. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants 16 September 2013 Milkweed Editions 978-1-57131-871-8 327 If grief can be a doorway to love, then let us all weep for the world we are breaking apart so we can love it back to wholeness again. Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants 16 September 2013 Milkweed Editions 978-1-57131-871-8 359 We tend to shy away from that grief. But I think that that’s the role of art: to help us into grief, and through grief, for each other, for our values, for the living world. You know, I think about grief as a measure of our love, that grief compels us to do something, to love more. Robin Wall Kimmerer Interview with The Guardian (2020) There is an indolence in griefWhich will not even seek relief. What is the toil, or care, or pain,The human heart cannot sustain?Enough if struggling can createA change or colour in our fate;But where's the spirit that can copeWith listless suffering, when hope,The last of misery's allies,Sickens of its sweet self, and dies. Letitia Elizabeth Landon, The Troubadour - Canto III. The only cure for grief is action. G. H. Lewes, The Spanish Drama, Life of Lope De Vega, Chapter II. Oh, well has it been said, that there is no grief like the grief which does not speak! Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Hyperion (1839), Book II, Chapter II. Believe me, it is no time for words when the wounds are fresh and bleeding; no time for homilies when the lightning's shaft has smitten and the man lies stunned and stricken. Then let the comforter be silent; let him sustain by his presence, not by his preaching; by his sympathetic silence, not by his speech. "Afterward," when the storm is spent, he may venture to open his mouth; "afterward," when the morn has dawned, he may seek "to justify the ways of God to man;" for " afterward" the sufferer will be prepared to hear, and "afterward" the sufferer himself may be able to extract sweetness from bitterness, music from mourning, songs from sorrow, and "the peaceable fruit of righteousness" from the root of wretchedness and woe. George C. Lorimer, Isms Old and New: Winter Sunday Evening Sermon-series for 1880-81 (1881), Chapter 6: Pessimism, or The Mystery of Human Suffering, "Unwise Comforters", p. 147. Grief exists only so long as one considers oneself to be of a definite form. If the form is transcended one will know that the one Self is eternal. There is no death nor birth. That which is born is only the body. The body is the creation of the ego. Sri Ramana Maharshi, quoted from Arun Shourie, Preparing: For Death. Penguin Random House India Private Limited, 2020. ISBN 935305978X, 9789353059781 Ille dolet vere qui sine teste dolet. He grieves sincerely who grieves unseen. Martial, Epigrams (c. 80-104 AD), I. 34. 4. There is a solemn luxury in grief. William Mason, The English Garden, line 596. Se a ciascun l'interno affannoSi 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? John Milton, Comus (1637), line 362. Great, good, and just, could I but rateMy grief with thy too rigid fate,I'd weep the world in such a strainAs it should deluge once again;But since thy loud-tongued blood demands suppliesMore from Briareus' hands than Argus' eyes,I'll sing thy obsequies with trumpet soundsAnd 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. Grief must be a reflection of love. It is perhaps the ultimate proof of love. Grief is an uncontrollable manifestation of your belief that the lost person’s existence, limited and flawed as it might have been, was worthwhile, despite the limitations and flaws even of life itself. Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order (2021), p. 372 I’ve climbed up hereholding the hilt of time’s swordafter driving itinto my tender heart. Suman Pokhrel, While Parting Whether anybody comes to convince me or nota part of my life does always achearresting my chest. Suman Pokhrel, While Parting Grief—unlike sex, music, and cheating at cards—was not a skill that could be honed by practice. Tim Pratt, Cup and Table (originally published in 2006 in David Moles & Susan Marie Groppi (eds.) Twenty Epics) and reprinted in Mike Ashley (ed.), The Mammoth Book of Extreme Fantasy (p. 375) Le bonheur est salutaire pour le corps, mais c'est le chagrin qui développe les forces de l'esprit. Happiness is beneficial for the body but it is grief that develops the powers of the mind. Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time (1927), Vol. VII: Le temps retrouvé (The Past Recaptured), Chapter III: "An Afternoon Party at the House of the Princesse de Guermantes". All the old statues of Victory have wings: but Grief has no wings. She is the unwelcome lodger that squats on the hearthstone between us and the fire and will not move or be dislodged. Arthur Quiller-Couch, Armistice Day anniversary sermon (Cambridge, November 1923) Curæ leves loquuntur, ingentes stupent. Light griefs are communicative, great ones stupefy. Seneca the Younger, Hippolytus, 607. Levis est dolor qui capere consilium potest. That grief is light which can take counsel. Seneca the Younger, Medea, I, 55. Magnus sibi ipse non facit finem dolor. Great grief does not of itself put an end to itself. Seneca the Younger, Troades, 786. If thou engrossest all the griefs are thine,Thou robb'st me of a moiety. William Shakespeare, All's Well That Ends Well (1600s), Act III, scene 2, line 68. For grief is crowned with consolation. William Shakespeare, Antony and Cleopatra (1600s), Act I, scene 2, line 173. O, grief hath chang'd me since you saw me last,And careful hours with time's deform'd handHave written strange defeatures in my face. William Shakespeare, The Comedy of Errors, Act V, scene 1, line 297. That we two are asunder; let that grieve him;Some griefs are medicinable. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act III, scene 2, line 32. Great griefs, I see, medicine the less. William Shakespeare, Cymbeline (1611), Act IV, scene 2, line 243. Oft have I heard that grief softens the mindAnd makes it fearful and degenerate. William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part II (c. 1590-91), Act IV, scene 4, line 1. What private griefs they have, alas, I know not,That made them do it. William Shakespeare, Julius Cæsar (1599), Act III, scene 2, line 216. For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop. William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 1, line 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! William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 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? William Shakespeare, King John (1598), Act III, scene 4, line 93. But then the mind much sufferance doth o'erskip,When grief hath mates. William Shakespeare, King Lear (1608), Act III, scene 6, line 113. Every one can master a grief but he that has it. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act III, scene 2, line 29. MenCan counsel and speak comfort to that griefWhich they themselves not feel; but, tasting it,Their counsel turns to passion, which beforeWould give preceptial medicine to rage,Fetter strong madness in a silken thread,Charm ache, with air and agony with words. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing (1598-99), Act V, scene 1, line 20. Nor doth the general careTake hold on me, for my particular griefIs of so flood-gate and o'erbearing natureThat it engluts and swallows other sorrowsAnd it is still itself. William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 54. When remedies are past, the griefs are endedBy seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. William Shakespeare, Othello (c. 1603), Act I, scene 3, line 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. William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act II, scene 2, line 14. You may my glories and my state depose,But not my griefs; still am I king of those. William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act IV, scene 1, line 192. My grief lies all within;And these external manners of lamentsAre merely shadows to the unseen griefThat swells with silence in the tortur'd soul. William Shakespeare, Richard II (c. 1595), Act IV, scene 1, line 295. Griefs of mine own lie heavy in my breast,Which thou wilt propagate, to have it prestWith more of thine. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act I, scene 1, line 193. Some griefs show much of love;But much of grief shows still some want of wit. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (1597), Act III, scene 5, line 73. My grief lies onward and my joy behind. William Shakespeare, Sonnet L. Alas, poor man! grief has so wrought on him,He takes false shadows for true substances. William Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus (c. 1584-1590), Act III, scene 2, line 79. But I haveThat honourable grief lodg'd here which burnsWorse than tears drown. William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act II, scene 1, line 110. What's gone and what's past helpShould be past grief. William Shakespeare, The Winter's Tale (c. 1610-11), Act III, scene 2, line 223. From now on, everything in life will appear blurry to me. What’s the point of wiping my glasses when my vision has already left me? Sanu Sharma, Pari Winter is come and gone,But grief returns with the revolving year. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Adonais, Stanza 18. Dark is the realm of grief: but human thingsThose may not know of who cannot weep for them. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Otho. (A projected poem). "Oh, but," quoth she, "great griefe will not be tould,And can more easily be thought than said." Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queene (1589-96), Book I, Canto VII, Stanza 41. He gave a deep sigh; I saw the iron enter into his soul. Laurence 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 (AD 117), II. 77. Over the river they beckon to me,Loved ones who've crossed to the farther side;The gleam of their snowy robes I see,But their voices are lost in the dashing tide. Nancy Amelia Woodbury Priest Wakefield, "Over the River", line 1, in Over the River and Other Poems (Boston: Lee and Shepard, 1883), p. 31. But, Madam, let your grief be laid aside,And let the fountain of your tears be dry'd,In vain they flow to wet the dusty plain,Your sighs are wafted to the skies in vain,Your pains they witness, but they can no more,While Death reigns tyrant o'er this mortal shore. Phillis Wheatley, "To a Gentleman and Lady on the Death of the Lady's Brother and Sister, and a Child of the Name of Avis, aged one Year." st. 2, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). Men are we, and must grieve when even the ShadeOf that which once was great is passed away. William Wordsworth, On the Extinction of the Venetian Republic. Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 342-44. 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. Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895) A genuine faith lifts us above the bitterness of grief; a sense of Christ's living presence takes away all unbearable loneliness even when we are most alone. In our darkest hours, to know that our lost friend is still living, still loving us, still ours, in the highest and best sense, must be unspeakably consoling. Arthur Henry Kenney, p. 27. Yes, we all live to God!Father, Thy chastening rod,So help us, Thine afflicted ones, to bear,That in the spirit land,Meeting at Thy right hand,'Twill be our heaven to find that He is there! John Pierpont, p. 28. External links grief Category:Death Category:Emotions