Lament Quotes

• My grief lies all within,
  And these external manners of lament
  Are merely shadows to the unseen grief
  That swells with silence in the tortured soul.

  William Shakespeare

  Lying, Grief, Silence

  William Shakespeare, Charles R. Forker (2002). “King Richard II: Third Series”, p.410, Cengage Learning EMEA

  91 Copy quote

  Show source

• Lament is a cry of belief in a good God, a God who has His ear to our hearts, a God who transfigures the ugly into beauty. Complaint is the bitter howl of unbelief in any benevolent God in this moment, a distrust in the love-beat of the Father's heart.

  Ann Voskamp

  Father, Heart, Ears

  Ann Voskamp (2011). “One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are”, p.175, Zondervan

  14 Copy quote

  Show source

• Cease to lament for that thou canst not help; and study help for that which thou lamentest.

  William Shakespeare

  Grief, Helping, Study

  William Shakespeare, John Payne Collier (1853). “The Works of Shakespeare: The Text Regulated by the Recently Discovered Portfolio of 1632, Containing Early Manuscript Emendations ; with a History of the Stage, a Life of the Poet, and an Introduction to Each Play”, p.103

  23 Copy quote

  Show source

• It is more fitting for a man to laugh at life than to lament over it.

  Seneca the Younger

  Inspirational, Happiness, Laughter

  "Personal Quotes/ Biography". www.imdb.com.

  28 Copy quote

  Show source

• A lament in one ear, maybe, but always a song in the other

  Sean O'Casey

  Song, Ears, Enchanting

  E. H. Mikhail, Sean O'Casey, John O'Riordan (1974). “The sting and the twinkle: conversations with Sean O'Casey”

  24 Copy quote

  Show source

• Nothing heals us like letting people know our scariest parts: When people listen to you cry and lament, and look at you with love, it's like they are holding the baby of you.

  Anne Lamott

  Baby, People, Looks

  159 Copy quote

• To complain of the age we live in, to murmur at the present possessors of power, to lament the past, to conceive extravagant hopes of the future, are the common dispositions of the greatest part of mankind.

  Edmund Burke

  Past, Age, Complaining

  'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents' (1770) p. 4

  18 Copy quote

  Show source

• The television screen, so unlike the movie screen, sharply reduced human beings, revealed them as small, trivial, flat, in two banal dimensions, drained of color. Wasn't there something reassuring about it! -- that human beings were in fact merely images of a kind registered in one another's eyes and brains, phenomena composed of microscopic flickering dots like atoms. They were atoms -- nothing more. A quick switch of the dial and they disappeared and who could lament the loss?

  Joyce Carol Oates

  Eye, Loss, Color

  "You Must Remember This". Book by Joyce Carol Oates, 1987.

  17 Copy quote

  Show source

• This is the point being missed by readers who lament Liquor's lack of hot sex scenes, probably because they aren't old enough to understand that a passionate relationship could be about anything other than sex.

  Poppy Z. Brite

  Sex, Hot, Passionate

  16 Copy quote

• When thou hast truly thanked the Lord for every blessing sent, But little time will then remain for murmur or lament.

  Hannah More

  Gratitude, Blessing, Littles

  17 Copy quote

• Alas, where is there still a sea in which one could drown: thus our lament resounds – across shallow swamps.

  Friedrich Nietzsche

  Sea, Swamps, Shallow

  3 Copy quote

• We Are All the Same
  Listen to the reeds as they sway apart;
  Hear them speak of lost friends.
  At birth, you were cut from your bed,
  Crying and grasping in separation.
  Everyone listens, knowing your song.
  You yearn for others who know your name,
  And the words to your lament.
  We are all the same, all the same,
  Longing to find our way back;
  Back to the one, back to the only one.

  Rumi

  Love, Song, Cutting

  9 Copy quote

• No to laugh, not to lament, not to detest, but to understand.

  Baruch Spinoza

  Laughing, Detest

  11 Copy quote

• Everyone performs bad actions... A bad person is someone who does not lament his bad actions.

  Jonathan Safran Foer

  Doe, Action, Persons

  Jonathan Safran Foer (2013). “Everything Is Illuminated”, p.145, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• We should cultivate the optimistic temperament, and endeavour to see the good that dwells in everything. If we sit down and lament over the imperfection of our bodies and our minds, we profit nothing; it is the heroic endeavour to subdue adverse circumstances that carries our spirit upward.

  Swami Vivekananda

  Optimistic, Optimism, Imperfection

  Swami Vivekananda (2015). “The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda”, p.1595, Manonmani Publishers

  12 Copy quote

  Show source

• Grieving, like being blind, is a strange business; you have to learn how to do it. We seek company in mourning, but after the early bursts of tears, after the praises have been spoken, and the good days remembered, and the lament cried, and the grave closed, there is no company in grief. It is a burden borne alone.

  Ursula K. Le Guin

  Grief, Good Day, Grieving

  9 Copy quote

• Human nature is divided; it contains both darkness and light. You can choose to accept the darkness and lament it, or you can choose to expand the light until the darkness no longer dominates.

  Deepak Chopra

  Light, Darkness, Human Nature

  Deepak Chopra (2012). “Spiritual Solutions: Answers to Life's Greatest Challenges”, p.145, Harmony

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• For me, it's always a little sad getting out of bed. Every morning after I get up, I always gaze longingly at my bed and lament, 'You were wonderful last night. I didn't want it to end. I can't wait to see you again.

  Jim Gaffigan

  Morning, Night, Waiting

  8 Copy quote

• There's a wonderful old Italian joke about a poor man who goes to church every day and prays before the statue of a great saint,'Dear saint-please, please, please...give me the grace to win the lottery.' This lament goes on for months. Finally the exasperated statue come to life, looks down at the begging man and says in weary disgust,'My son-please, please, please...buy a ticket.

  Elizabeth Gilbert

  Son, Italian, Winning

  8 Copy quote

• I do think environmental writers need to be forward thinking, not just lamenting our losses. We do need to lament; in some ways it's important to be the vessels for grief for all that's being lost on our planet. But we also need to be forward thinking.

  Alison Hawthorne Deming

  Grief, Loss, Thinking

  Nashville Review Interview, as.vanderbilt.edu. December 1, 2012.

  7 Copy quote

  Show source

• Men wrongly lament the flight of time, blaming it for being too swift; they do not perceive that its passage is sufficiently long, but a good memory, which nature has given to us, causes things long past to seem present.

  Leonardo da Vinci

  Time, Memories, Past

  Leonardo Da Vinci (2015). “Thoughts on Art and Life: "Behind the Genius"”, p.84, eKitap Projesi

  6 Copy quote

  Show source

• I didn't want normal until I didn't have it anymore

  Maggie Stiefvater

  Want, Normal

  Maggie Stiefvater (2010). “Lament: The Faerie Queen's Deception”, p.139, North Star Editions, Inc.

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• All observations of life are harsh, because life is. I lament that fact, but I cannot change it.

  Margaret Atwood

  Facts, Life Is, Harsh

  Margaret Atwood (2007). “The Tent”, p.27, Anchor

  3 Copy quote

  Show source

• The life of an Indian is like the wings of the air. That is why you notice the hawk knows how to get his prey. The Indian is like that. The hawk swoops down on its prey, so does the Indian. In his lament he is like an animal. For instance, the coyote is sly, so is the Indian. The eagle is the same. That is why the Indian is always feathered up, he is a relative to the wings of the air.

  Black Elk

  Native American, Animal, Air

  John Gneisenau Neihardt, Black Elk, Raymond J. DeMallie (1984). “The Sixth Grandfather: Black Elk's teachings given to John G. Neihardt”, Univ of Nebraska Pr

  8 Copy quote

  Show source

• Somewhere out in the darkness, a phoenix was singing in a way Harry had never heard before: a stricken lament of terrible beauty. And Harry felt, as he had felt about phoenix song before, that the music was inside him, not without: It was his own grief turned magically to song.

  J. K. Rowling

  Song, Grief, Phoenix

  9 Copy quote