Sadness is a part of life. You can never avoid it because it’s part of who we are as human beings. Sometimes, embracing sadness is better than running away from it because it teaches you to be strong and to face life with hope. If you’re currently going through something, these sad life quotes we compiled might help express what you really feel inside.
Sad Life Quotes
1. Sometimes the pain is so unmanageable that the idea of spending another day with it seems impossible. Other times pain acts as a compass to help you through the messier tunnels of growing up. But pain can only help you find happiness if you remember it. – Adam Silvera
2. A feeling of sadness and longing, that is not akin to pain and resembles sorrow only, as the mist resembles the rain. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
3. Sorrow is knowledge, those that know the most must mourn the deepest, the tree of knowledge is not the tree of life. – Lord Byron
4. It’s easy to cry when you realize that everyone you love will reject you or die. – Chuck Palahniuk
5. Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living. – Antoine de Saint-Exupery
6. My feeling is that there is nothing in life but refraining from hurting others, and comforting those who are sad. – Olive Schreiner
7. To fall in love is awfully simple, but to fall out of love is simply awful. – Bess Myerson
8. Sadness is almost never anything but a form of fatigue. – Andre Gide
9. Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. – J. K. Rowling
10. Absence from whom we love is worse than death and frustrates hope severer than despair. – William Cowper
11. As the light begins to intensify, so does my misery, and I wonder how it is possible to hurt so much when nothing is wrong. – Tabitha Suzuma
12. I have a thousand reasons to die and many millions of tears to cry. – Draconian
13. So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers. – John Sutherland Bonnell
14. Behind every sweet smile, there is a bitter sadness that no one can ever see and feel. – Tupac Shakur
15. There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow. – Alfred De Musset
16. Sadness is a super important thing not to be ashamed about but to include in our lives. One of the bigger problems with sadness or depression is there’s so much shame around it. If you have it you’re a failure. You are felt as being very unattractive. – Mike Mills
17. How sad it is that we give up on people who are just like us. – Fred Rogers
18. Tears are words that need to be written. – Paulo Coelho
19. Sadness usually results from one of the following causes either when a man does not succeed, or is ashamed of his success. – Seneca
20. This is what it felt like to have a broken heart. It felt less like a cracking down the middle and more like she had swallowed it whole and it sat bruised and bleeding in the pit of her stomach. – Wendy Wunder
21. Sweet is the memory of distant friends. Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart. – Washington Irving
22. Half of the secular unrest and dismal, profane sadness of modern society comes from the vain ideas that every man is bound to be a critic for life. – Henry Van Dyke
23. Nothing records the effects of a sad life so graphically as the human body. – Naguib Mahfouz
24. Man could not live if he were entirely impervious to sadness. Many sorrows can be endured only by being embraced, and the pleasure taken in them naturally has a somewhat melancholy character. – Emile Durkheim
25. The way sadness works is one of the strange riddles of the world. If you are stricken with a great sadness, you may feel as if you have been set aflame, not only because of the enormous pain but also because your sadness may spread over your life, like smoke from an enormous fire. – Lemony Snicket
26. Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought. – Percy Bysshe Shelley
27. We must understand that sadness is an ocean, and sometimes we drown, while other days we are forced to swim. – R.M. Drake
28. There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have the feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. – Nicholas Sparks
29. Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative you can get beyond your pain or negativity. – Yoko Ono
30. Some days are just bad days, that’s all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is. – Dita Von Teese
31. There is no point treating a depressed person as though she were just feeling sad, saying, there now, hang on, you’ll get over it. Sadness is more or less like a head cold with patience, it passes. Depression is like cancer. – Barbara Kingsolver
32. Depression is the most unpleasant thing I have ever experienced. It is that absence of being able to envisage that you will ever be cheerful again. The absence of hope. That very deadened feeling, which is so very different from feeling sad. Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel. Depression is very different. – J.K. Rowling
33. Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not, and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad. – Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
34. Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul. – Oscar Wilde
35. Sometimes we get sad about things and we don’t like to tell other people that we are sad about them. We like to keep it a secret. Or sometimes, we are sad but we really don’t know why we are sad, so we say we aren’t sad but we really are. – Mark Haddon
36. Leaning against my father, the sadness finally broke open inside me, hollowing out my heart and leaving me bleeding. My feet felt rooted in the dirt. There were more than two bodies buried here. Pieces of me that I didn’t even know were under the ground. Pieces of dad, too. – Laurie Halse Anderson
37. The word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness. – Carl Jung
38. Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a pure heart. – Jose N. Harris
39. The longer and more carefully we look at a funny story, the sadder it becomes. – Nikolai Gogol
40. There is some kind of a sweet innocence in being human in not having to be just happy or just sad in the nature of being able to be both broken and whole, at the same time. – C. Joybell
41. So it’s true, when all is said and done, grief is the price we pay for love. – E.A. Bucchianeri
42. The largest part of what we call ‘personality’ is determined by how we’ve opted to defend ourselves against anxiety and sadness. – Alain de Botton
43. Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it’s there if you look deep. – Taraji P. Henson
44. Don’t be ashamed to weep, ’tis right to grieve. Tears are only water, and flowers, trees, and fruit cannot grow without water. But there must be sunlight also. A wounded heart will heal in time, and when it does, the memory and love of our lost ones is sealed inside to comfort us. – Brian Jacques
45. Tears are words the mouth can’t say nor can the heart bear. – Joshua Wisenbaker
46. I don’t know if I’m getting better or just used to the pain.
47. Nobody really cares if you’re miserable, so you might as well be happy. – Cynthia Nelms
48. Behind my smile is everything you’ll never understand.
49. It sucks to be alone, even when there are people all around you. – Scrubs
50. I wake up and think dreams are real. I sleep so I don’t have to feel.
51. For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, it might have been. – John Greenleaf Whittier
52. Words hurt more than anything else can, because they last, sometimes forever.
53. I wanna get lost from my life sometimes, sit on the side and watch the world go by, I wanna get lost and I don’t know why. – Everclear
54. I’ve learned it takes years to build up trust, but only seconds to destroy it.
55. I didn’t want to admit it. It was easier to lie. Hide the hurt and emptiness to smile instead of cry.
56. Not all scars show, not all wounds heal. Sometimes you can’t always see the pain someone feels.
57. She says that beginnings are scary, endings are usually sad, but it’s the middle that counts the most. – Sandra Bullock
58. Every morning you get up and put on a fake smile but what if one morning you didn’t? Would anyone notice?
59. Life doesn’t hurt until you think about how much things have changed, who you’ve lost along the way, and how much of it was your fault. – Jamila M. Allen
60. It’s hard to hold on to something that you know would never be yours in any way you think of, you just have to learn to let go and face the fact that while good things never last some don’t even start.
61. Have you ever felt so alone and nothing makes sense? Well that’s how I feel right now. I feel like I’m facing everything myself, with nothing but tears and a fake smile.
62. We enjoy warmth because we have been cold. We appreciate light because we have been in darkness. By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness. – David Weatherford
63. They that sow in tears shall reap in joy. – Psalms
64. Hearts will never be practical until they can be made unbreakable. – Wizard of Oz
65. How sad to see a father with money and no joy. The man studied economics, but never studied happiness. – Jim Rohn
66. The saddest summary of a life contains three descriptions could have, might have, and should have. – Louis E. Boone
67. I seldom think about my limitations, and they never make me sad. Perhaps there is just a touch of yearning at times, but it is vague, like a breeze among flowers. – Helen Keller
68. Clowns wear a face that’s painted intentionally on them so they appear to be happy or sad. What kind of mask are you wearing today?
69. It is a time when one’s spirit is subdued and sad, one knows not why, when the past seems a storm-swept desolation, life a vanity and a burden, and the future but a way to death. – Mark Twain
70. 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. – Carl Gustav Jung
71. I will wait for you till the day I can forget you or till the day you realize you cannot forget me.
72. It hurts to breathe because every breath I take proves I can’t live without you.
73. The saddest thing in the world, is loving someone who used to love you.
74. There is no disguise which can hide love for long where it exists, or simulate it where it does not.
75. Sometimes I just want to give up, go crawl under my covers and cry myself to sleep. But I never tell anyone this because I know they won’t understand.
76. I hate it when crying is the only way to feel better.
77. There are two types of people in the world, those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.
78. A million words would not bring you back, I know because I tried, neither would a million tears, I know because I cried.
79. Envy hurt exponentially more than heartbreak because your soul was torn in two, half soaring with happiness for another person, half mired in a well of self pity and pain.
80. Ask me why I keep on loving you when it’s clear that you don’t feel the same way for me the problem is that as much as I can’t force you to love me, I can’t force myself to stop loving you.
81. It’s better to be lonely then to be played by wrong people.
82. Life is short, there is no time to leave important words unsaid.
83. My two most hated words, I promise. It doesn’t mean something.
84. I don’t depend on people anymore because I’m tired of being disappointed.
85. The hardest part in life is trying to show the smile you know it’s fake and to hide the tears that won’t stop.
86. Sadness does not come from bad circumstances. It comes from bad thoughts.
87. And that’s when I know it’s over. As soon as you start thinking about the beginning, it’s the end.
88. That is all I want in life, for this pain to seem purposeful.
89. Although the world is full of suffering, it is also full of the overcoming of it.
90. It’s hard to hold on to something that you know would never be yours in any way you think of, you just have to learn to let go and face the fact that while good things never last some don’t even start.
91. It’s hard to wait around for something you know might never happen, but it’s even harder to give up when it’s everything you want.
92. Why do people have to be this lonely? What’s the point of it all? Millions of people in this world, all of them yearning, looking to others to satisfy them, yet isolating themselves. Why? Was the earth put here just to nourish human loneliness?
93. Behind my smile is everything you’ll never understand.
94. A marriage is no amusement but a solemn act, and generally a sad one.
95. Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.
96. Nothing thicker than a knife’s blade separates happiness from melancholy.
97. There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist.
98. Respect yourself enough to walk away from anything that no longer serves you, grows you, or makes you happy.
99. Tears are words the heart can’t express.
100. Sadness flies on the wings of the morning and out of the heart of darkness comes the light.
101. Is it worse if we invented sadness or if it was here all along.
102. Sadness gives depth. Happiness gives height. Sadness gives roots. Happiness gives branches. Happiness is like a tree going into the sky, and sadness is like the roots going down into the womb of the earth. Both are needed, and the higher a tree goes, the deeper it goes, simultaneously. The bigger the tree, the bigger will be its roots. In fact, it is always in proportion. That’s its balance.
103. You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness. – Jonathan Safran Foer
104. You can never control who you fall in love with, even when you’re in the most sad, confused time of your life. You don’t fall in love with people because they’re fun. It just happens.
105. Crying is cleansing. There’s a reason for tears, happiness or sadness.
106. It’s sad when you realize you aren’t as important to someone as you thought you were.
107. The heart reeks of sadness and pain, the face exposes the fake happiness that never actually was pride
108. What do you do when the only one who can make you stop crying is the one who is making you cry?
109. They say follow your heart, but if your heart is in a million pieces which piece do you follow?
110. Sometimes all you wanna do is stay quiet just to find out who cares about you enough to ask you why.
111. We tend to treat sadness as if it were something wrong. For those experiencing sadness, it can make them feel alienated. It’s important that we look at sadness as a normal part of life, and allow it to be expressed in a healthy way.
112. To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.
113. Sadness is also a kind of defence.
114. I don’t understand why life keeps trying to teach me lessons I don’t want to learn.
115. Write your sad times in sand, write your good times in stone.
116. It hurts the worst when the person that made you feel so special yesterday, makes you feel so unwanted today.
117. Everybody knows that something’s wrong but nobody knows what’s going on.
118. Walking alone is not difficult but when we have walked a mile worth a thousand years with someone then coming back alone is what is difficult.
119. At some point, you have to realize that some people can stay in your heart but not in your life.
120. I close my eyes and dream of a time when I wasn’t all alone.
121. It feels like every other part of my body is broken too.
122. Yes, I have trust issues. I’m the only person who hasn’t let me down.
123. I don’t want any more of this try, try again stuff. I just want out. I’ve had it. I am so tired. I am twenty and I am already exhausted.
124. I had to stop, because I had everything and I was absolutely broken inside. I kept it all together enough to where I would never let you down but I kept it too much together to where I let myself down.
125. Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together.
126. Depression is like a heaviness that you can’t ever escape. It crushes down on you, making even the smallest things like tying your shoes or chewing on toast seem like a twenty mile hike uphill. Depression is a part of you, it’s in your bones and your blood.
127. Emptiness feels so heavy.
128. It’s sad to be happy alone.
129. It seems to me that the harder I try the harder I fall.
130. They ignore you until they need you.
131. Being ignored, worst feeling ever.
132. Life goes on with or without you.
133. I never stopped loving you, I just stopped showing it.
134. People keep telling me that life goes on, but to me that’s the saddest part.
135. When all is said and done, grief is the price we pay.
136. Let your tears come. Let them water your soul.
137. I feel so miserable that I can’t be around normal people without making them miserable, too.
138. Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts.
139. I love crying in the rain. because when i do, no one can hear the pain.
140. The ones that you love the most are usually the ones that hurt you the most.
141. Breathing is hard. When you cry so much, it makes you realize that breathing is hard.
142. I love photographs because they never change even if the people in them do.
143. I wish it would rain all day, maybe that would make the pain go away.
144. Welcome to the world. You will hurt the people you love the most. You will say stupid things and embarrass yourself repeatedly. You will crash your car and lose your wallet before the bill comes. You will get sick, sad and lonely.
145. For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, it might have been.
146. Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.
147. Nobody understands another’s sorrow, and nobody another’s joy.
148. Music is better than girls, because girls cause problems that music fixes.
149. The word happy would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.
150. Stay strong, make them wonder how you’re still smiling.
151. Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
152. I smile not for that I am happy, but sometimes I smile to hide sadness.
153. Temporary happiness isn’t worth long term pain.
154. I’ll fake all the smiles, if it stops all the questions.
155. A big part of letting go is recognizing when it is time to stay in a situation and when it is time to move on.
156. I still find myself feeling sad about the things that don’t even matter anymore.
157. When I cry about one thing, I end up crying about everything that’s messed up in my life.
158. Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.
159. Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.
160. People cry not because they are weak, It’s because they’ve been strong for too long.
161. It’s sad how people become what they had promised they never will. It’s sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.
162. Don’t trust too much, don’t love too much, don’t care too much because that too much will hurt you so much.
163. It’s hard to wait around for something that you know might not happen but it’s even harder to give up, when you know it’s everything you ever wanted.
164. I’m not okay, I’m just good at pretending I am.
165. There is a distinct, awful pain that comes with loving someone more than they love you.