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Topics · Healing & Mental Health

Wisdom about grief.

What people have learned about grief the hard way, and what the classics said about it first.

Discussions

Community rules
  • Speak from experience. Say what you lived and what you learned. Advice without a story is easy to ignore.
  • Be kind to the person. Disagree with an idea as much as you like. Never with someone’s worth.
  • Not a substitute for care. Nothing here is medical, legal or financial advice. In crisis, reach out to local services.
  • No selling. No promotion, referral links or pitching your course.

From the library

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.
Parting is such sweet sorrow.
The busy bee has no time for sorrow.
The blessing of the Lord, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it.
Or fame or life, Which do you hold more dear? Or life or wealth, To which would you adhere? Keep life and lose those other things; Keep them and lose your life:—which brings Sorrow and pain more near?
He that winketh with the eye causeth sorrow: but a prating fool shall fall.
To him by whom this harmony is known, (The secret of) the unchanging (Tao) is shown, And in the knowledge wisdom finds its throne. All life-increasing arts to evil turn; Where the mind makes the vital breath to burn, (False) is the strength, (and o'er it we should mourn.)
A foolish son is a grief to his father, and bitterness to her that bare him.
In a little state with a small population, I would so order it, that, though there were individuals with the abilities of ten or a hundred men, there should be no employment of them; I would make the people, while looking on death as a grievous thing, yet not remove elsewhere (to avoid it).
A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance: but by sorrow of the heart the spirit is broken.
On occasions of festivity to be on the left hand is the prized position; on occasions of mourning, the right hand. The second in command of the army has his place on the left; the general commanding in chief has his on the right;—his place, that is, is assigned to him as in the rites of mourning. He who has killed multitudes of men should weep for them with the bitterest grief; and the victor in…
When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice: but when the wicked beareth rule, the people mourn.