#grief

My sister Emily first declined. The details of her illness are deep-branded in my memory, but to dwell on them, either in thought or narrative, is not in my power. Never in all her life had she lingered over any task that lay before her, and she did not linger now. She sank rapidly. She made haste to leave us. Yet, while physically she perished, mentally, she grew stronger than we had yet known her. Day by day, when I saw with what a front she met suffering, I looked on her with anguish of wonder and love. I have seen nothing like it; but, indeed, I have never seen her parallel in anything. Stronger than a man, simpler than a child, her nature stood alone. The awful point was, that, while full of ruth for others, on herself she had no pity; the spirit inexorable to the flesh; from the trembling hand, the unnerved limbs, the faded eyes, the same service exacted as they had rendered in health. To stand by and witness this, and not dare to remonstrate, was pain no words can render. ↗

— Charlotte Brontë

#emily-bronte #grief #illness #sisters #suffering

There should be a statute of limitation on grief. A rulebook that says it is all right to wake up crying, but only for a month. That after 42 days you will no longer turn with your heart racing, certain you have heard her call out your name. That there will be no fine imposed if you feel the need to clean out her desk; take down her artwork from the refrigerator; turn over a school portrait as you pass - if only because it cuts you fresh again to see it. That it's okay to measure the time she has been gone, the way we once measured her birthdays. ↗

— Jodi Picoult

#limitation #time #need

…nothing remained but loneliness and grief… ↗

— Louisa May Alcott

#little-women #loneliness #louisa-may-alcott #louisa-may-alcott

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

— Aeschylus

#great #grief #joy #memory #pain

We may not commit a lesser Sin under pretence to avoid a greater, but we may, nay we ought to endure the greatest Pain and Grief rather than commit the least Sin. ↗

— Mary Astell

#commit #endure #greater #greatest #grief

Therefore I do pray and entreat you in the name of Jesus Christ to do so much as to make my being here in Japan known to my poor wife, in a manner a widow and my two children fatherless; which thing only is my greatest grief of heart and conscience. ↗

— William Adams

#children #christ #conscience #entreat #fatherless

Man is subject to innumerable pains and sorrows by the very condition of humanity, and yet, as if nature had not sown evils enough in life, we are continually adding grief to grief and aggravating the common calamity by our cruel treatment of one another. ↗

— Joseph Addison

#aggravating #another #calamity #common #condition

I come into the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief... For a time I rest in the grace of the world, and am free. ↗

— Wendell Berry

#am #come #forethought #free #grace

To rejoice in another's prosperity is to give content to your lot; to mitigate another's grief is to alleviate or dispel your own. ↗

— Tryon Edwards

#another #content #dispel #give #grief

He who is overly attached to his family members experiences fear and sorrow, for the root of all grief is attachment. Thus one should discard attachment to be happy. ↗

— Chanakya

#attached #attachment #be happy #discard #experiences