These death quotes and words of sympathy can offer some comfort and compassion to people who are grieving. If you know of someone who has lost a loved one, take a look through and find the words that you will be intuitively drawn to, then add them to a bereavement card. Or if it is you who is grieving, read through these words and know that your love for and from that special person will never die.
The description of dying I prefer is…
To make a Peaceful Transition into the Flow of Eternal Life.
This page contains the shorter quotes from known authors, there is also a page of Death Sayings for comforting words from unknown sources. There are also several other pages of longer words of consolation. For longer entries there are Sympathy Poems from known authors and Unknown Sources and my own Poems of Consolation.
Comforting death quotes are listed alphabetically on surname/source
Comforting Death Quotes: A
Abraham-Hicks
The reason that you call it ‘grief’ is because you’ve been programmed to believe that you should feel bad about death.
If you follow Abraham-Hicks or are interested in viewing death from a different perspective please take a look at Abraham Hicks quotes about death and grief.
A Course In Miracles
Give truth its due, and it will give you yours. You were not meant to suffer and to die. Your Father wills these dreams gone. Let truth correct them all.
No one can grieve nor fear nor think him sick unless these are the outcomes that he wants. And no one dies without his own consent. Nothing occurs but represents your wish and nothing is omitted that you choose.
The Holy Spirit guides you into life eternal, but you must relinquish your investment in death, or you will not see life, though it is all around you.
There is no death because what God created shares His Life. There is no death because an opposite to God does not exist.
Why wait for Heaven? Those who seek the Light are merely covering their eyes. The Light is in them now. Enlightenment is but a recognition, not a change at all.
Louisa May Alcott 1832 – 1888
I think immortality is the passing of a Soul through many lives or experiences, and such as are truly lived, used and learned, help on to the next, each growing richer, happier and higher, carrying with it only the real memories of what has gone before.
Sri Aurobindo 1872 – 1950
The first and the most important thing is to know that life is one and immortal. Only the forms, countless in number, are transient and brittle. The life everlasting is independent of any form but manifests itself in all forms. Life then does not die… but the forms are dissolved.
St Teresa of Avila 1515 – 1582
The hour I have long wished for is now come. (her final words)
Comforting Death Quotes: B
Richard Bach 1936
What the caterpillar calls the end of the world, the master calls a butterfly.
Francis Bacon 1561 – 1626
It is as natural to die – as to be born.
James Matthew Barrie 1860 – 1937
To die will be an awfully big adventure.
Henry Ward Beecher 1813 – 1887
We go to the grave of a friend saying, “A man is dead,”
but Angels throng about him saying, “A man is born.”
Ludwig van Beethoven 1770 – 1827
I shall hear in Heaven. (his final words)
Irving Berlin 1888 – 1989
The song is ended… but the melody lingers on.
Bhagavad Gita
As a man leaves an old garment and puts on one that is new, the Spirit leaves his mortal body and wanders on to one that is new.
Bhagavad Gita
For beyond time he dwells in these bodies, though these bodies have an end in their time; but he remains immeasurable immortal.
He is never born, and he never dies
He is in Eternity: he is evermore
Never-born and Eternal
Beyond times gone or to come
He does not die when the body dies
Invisible before birth are all beings and after death invisible again. They are seen between two unseens, why in this truth find sorrow?
Bhagavad Gita
Invisible is he to mortal eyes, beyond thought and beyond change. Know that he is and cease to sorrow.
The Spirit is beyond destruction. No one can bring to an end the Spirit which is everlasting.
Bible
Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest.
God is our refuge and strength, an ever present help in trouble.
Lord, when doubts fill my mind, when my heart is in turmoil, quiet me and give me renewed hope.
Set me as a seal upon your heart
As a ring upon your arm
For love is as strong as death
It’s flashes are flashes of fire
A flame of the Eternal.
The Lord is close to the broken hearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.
Black Elk 1863 – 1950
It is good to have a reminder of death before us, for it helps us to understand the impermanence of life on this Earth, and this understanding may aid us in preparing for our own death. He who is well prepared is he who knows that he is nothing compared with Wakan-Tanka, who is everything; then he knows that world which is real.
William Blake 1757 – 1827
I am going to that country which I have all my life wished to see.
(his final words)
Erma Bombeck 1927 – 1996
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, “I used everything you gave me.”
Robert Brault
Sometimes in tragedy we find our life’s purpose… the eye sheds a tear to find its focus.
Pam Brown 1948
Loss leaves us empty – but learn not to close your heart and mind in grief. Allow life to replenish you. When sorrow comes it seems impossible, but new joys wait to fill the void.
Robert Browning 1812 – 1889
My sun sets to rise again.
Gertrude T. Buckingham 1880 – ?
My prayer is that many of the poems in this book may help to bring joy and peace and understanding to those souls who may be grieving for loved ones whom they call ‘dead’ but who, in reality, are still living in a real world of beauty, being able to manifest to their dear ones of earth when the door is opened for them to come in.
There’s one gift, dear Father, which I have received
That has kept despair from my heart when I’ve grieved
‘Tis knowledge that loved ones, when they’ve been called home
Do not go far away, I’m never alone
Buddha 624BC – 543BC
Everything that has a beginning has an end.
Make your peace with that and all will be well.
Samuel Butler 1835 – 1902
Death is only a larger kind of going abroad.
If life must not be taken too seriously, then so neither must death.
Lorna Byrne 1953
The sadness and pain surrounding the death of a parent, brother or sister, can bring with it an unexpected gift, and help families to become closer. It can help bring shared memories to light, and be a reminder of love that was shared in the past.
Lord Byron 1788 – 1824
Death, so called is a thing which makes men weep. And yet, a third of life is passed in sleep.
The dew of compassion is… a tear.
Comforting Death Quotes: C
Anna Carey
I loved my mother too, I said. I still do. That’s the thing – it never goes away, even if the person does.
Love was death’s only adversary, the only thing powerful enough to combat its clawing, desperate grasp.
Kristine Carlson
Love is truly eternal and lasts forever. It is the core of our connection and expression of life.
Rosanne Cash 1955
When my dad died a lot of songs came, and they’re still coming.
Marcus Tullius Cicero 106BC – 43BC
Friends, though absent, are still present.
Chief Crowfoot 1830 – 1890
A little while and I will be gone from among you, when I cannot tell. From nowhere we came, into nowhere we go.
What is life?
It is the flash of firefly in the night.
It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime.
It is the little shadow which runs across the grass
And loses itself in the sunset.
Anna Cummins
Do not save your loving speeches for your friends till they are dead. Do not write them on their tombstones. Speak them rather now instead.
Comforting Death Quotes: D
Matt Damon 1970
If I had a bucket list… I’d say raising my four girls to be strong, good women would be number one.
Emily Dickinson 1830 – 1886
Unable are the loved to die… For love is immortality.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015
Choose to see death as simply removing a garment or moving from one room to another… it’s merely a transition.
Wayne Dyer 1940 – 2015
Eternity is now. Right now, right here, you’re an infinite being. Once you get past the fear of death as an end, you merge with the infinite and feel the comfort and relief that this realization brings.
I have a suit in my closet with the pocket cut out. It’s a reminder to me that I won’t be taking anything with me. The last I wear won’t need any pockets.
Opening to the power of intention, you begin knowing that conception, birth and death are all natural aspects of the energy field of creation.
Comforting Death Quotes: E
Thomas Edison 1847 – 1931
It is very beautiful over there. (his final words)
Albert Einstein 1879 – 1955
Our death is not an end if we can live on in our children and the younger generation. For they are us, our bodies are only wilted leaves on the tree of life.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
It is the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die, but only retire a little from sight and afterward return again.
Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803 – 1882
Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short. But when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say, we have had our day.
Euripides 480BC – 406BC
No one can confidently say that he will still be living tomorrow.
Comforting Death Quotes: F
Federation Of Light-Blossom Goodchild
Life continues on forever and ever, whether or not you are ‘dead or alive’ upon your particular Planet!
Jean de la Fontaine 1621 – 1695
Death never takes the wise man by surprise, he is always ready to go.
Charles Frohman 1860 – 1915
Why fear death? It is the most beautiful adventure in life.
Comforting Death Quotes: G
John Gay 1685 – 1732
We only part to meet again.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931
For what is it to die but to stand naked in the wind and to melt into the sun?
He who loses his mother loses a pure soul who blesses and guards him constantly.
I want to see written on my grave: I am alive like you, and I am standing beside you. Close your eyes and look around, you will see me in front of you. (it is written next to his grave)
If the ignorant say to you that the Soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower perishes, but the seeds remain. This is the law of God.
Life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one. In the depths of your hopes and desires lies your silent knowledge of the beyond; and like seeds dreaming beneath the snow, your heart dreams of spring. Trust the dreams, for in them is hidden the gate to eternity.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931
Love knows not its depth till the hour of separation.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931
Love, like death, changes everything.
Kahlil Gibran 1883 – 1931
We fear death, yet we long for slumber and beautiful dreams.
Comforting Death Quotes: H
Alex Haley 1921 – 1992
When an old person dies, it’s like a library burning.
Thich Nhat Hanh 1926
Let us not be afraid of decreasing. It is like the moon, we see the moon increasing and decreasing, but it is always the moon.
comforting death quote from Thich Nhat HanhThich Nhat Hanh 1926
I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, “No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, ‘I will see you again very soon.’” That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf because it is not afraid – it knew nothing can be born and nothing can die.
Jimi Hendrix 1942 – 1970
I’m the one that’s got to die when it’s time for me to die, so let me live my life the way I want to.
Esther Hicks 1948
The greatest gift Jerry gave me was by presenting to me a condition over which I had no control.. His transition.
Horace 65BC – 8BC
I shall not die altogether.
Cardinal Basil Hume 1923 – 1999
Soon after you’re dead – we’re not sure how long – but not long, you’ll be united with the most ecstatic love you’ve ever known. As one of the best things in your life was human love, this will be love, but much more satisfying, and it will last forever.
Gloria Hunniford 1940
People never die, if they live on the lips of the living.
Comforting Death Quotes: J
Michael Jackson 1958 – 2009
If you enter this world knowing you are loved, and you leave this world knowing the same, then everything that happens in between can be dealt with.
This world we live in is the dance of the Creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye, but the dance lives on.
Chris Jones
Grief tells our hearts things life, ‘How can I possibly find joy again when so much was lost?’ Gratitude responds softly, ‘Yes, it hurts, but what a Blessing it was, even if only for a short time.’
Carl Jung 1875 – 1961
What happens after death is so unspeakably glorious that our imagination and our feelings do not suffice to form even an approximate conception of it. The dissolution of our time-bound form in eternity brings no loss of meaning.
Comforting Death Quotes: K
John F. Kennedy 1917 – 1963
Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal.
Gary Kinnaman
Heaven comes to people – and their loved ones – when they are dying. It is not uncommon for Angels to appear when people are on the edge of death, and people who have had near-death experiences often describe feelings of indescribable peace – Angels.
Jack Kornfield 1945
At the end of life, our questions are very simple…
Did I live fully? Did I love well?
Jack Kornfield 1945
In the end, just three things matter…
How well we have lived.
How well we have loved.
How well we have learned to let go.
Elizabeth Kubler-Ross 1926 – 2004
It is when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on Earth and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.
Comforting Death Quotes: L
Philip Larkin 1922 – 1985
What will survive of us is… Love.
comforting death quote from Philip Larkin
D.H. Lawrence 1885 – 1930
The dead don’t die. They look on and help.
Illustration – Sandra Reeves
John Lennon 1940 – 1980
I’m not afraid of death because I don’t believe in it. It’s just getting out of one car and into another.
Gotthold Ephraim Lessing 1729 – 1781
It is not I who die, when I die, but my sin and misery.
C.S. Lewis 1898 – 1963
There are far, far better things ahead, than any we leave behind.
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow 1807 – 1882
Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives sublime. And, departing, leave behind us, footprints on the sands of time.
Rosamund Lupton
Grief is… Love turned into an eternal missing.
Time stops making any sense, when someone you love has died.
Howard Lyman 1938
Do what you can do. As well as you can do it, every day of your life and you will end up dying one of the happiest individuals that has ever died.
Comforting Death Quotes: M
Gobind Singh Mansukhani
Death is nothing but a gateway to Divinity and Eternity.
Somerset Maugham 1874 – 1965
The great tragedy of life is not that men perish, but that they cease to love.
John McCreery 1835 – 1906
There is no death, the stars go down to rise upon some other shore, and bright in Heaven’s jeweled crown they shine forever more.
Ashley Montagu 1905 – 1999
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
Thomas More 1478 – 1535
Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal.
Thomas More 1478 – 1535
Pray for me, as I will for thee, that we may merrily meet in Heaven.
Movie – The Martian
Dying is something big and beautiful and greater than me.
Movie – The Neverending Story
Nothing is lost… Everything is transformed.
Movie – What Dreams May Come
A whole human life is just a heartbeat here in Heaven. Then we’ll all be together forever.
Max Muller 1823 – 1900
I know well there is no comfort for this pain of parting. The wound always remains, but one learns to bear the pain, and learns to thank God for what he gave. For the beautiful memories of the past, and the yet more beautiful hope for the future.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010
Believe in the immortality and everlasting effects of your goodness.
Robert Muller 1923 – 2010
Dying persons should leave a message to the living and tell them how they could better live. For it is at the moment of losing something that one appreciates its full value.
Humans will not admire my bank account after my death, but they might admire me for the person I was, for my writings, my achievements, my efforts, the messages I left.
I will spend my afterlife as a Spiritual Being, working for peace and happiness on Earth. Like St Therese, I pledge to spend my Heaven doing good on Earth.
The end of our journey is not calvary and death, but Heaven and resurrection.
To those who see this world as part of God’s creation, death will come naturally and gently.
Comforting Death Quotes: N
Native American – Blackfoot
Life is not separate from death. It only looks that way.
comforting death quote from Native American Blackfoot tribeNative American – Cherokee
When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice.
Native American – Comanche
All who have died are equal.
Native American – Tuscarora
They are not dead who live in the hearts they leave behind.
Comforting Death Quotes: O
Mary Oliver 1935 – 2019
Maybe death isn’t darkness after all, but so much light wrapping itself around us.
comforting death quote from Mary OliverMary Oliver 1935 – 2019
When it’s over, I want to say…
“All my life I was a bride married to Amazement.”
Frederic Ozanam 1813 – 1853
Peace of heart – without it, no good can make us happy. With it, every trial, even the approach of death, can be borne.
Comforting Death Quotes: P
Blaise Pascal 1623 – 1662
We shall not die alone.
George S. Patton 1885 – 1945
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the man who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
Norman Vincent Peale 1898 – 1993
I believe there are two sides to the phenomenon known as death – this side where we live, and the other side where we shall continue to live. Eternity does not start with death. We are eternal now.
Pericles 495BC – 429BC
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others.
Raoul Plus 1882 – 1958
Death is only a level crossing from one life to another, from life in its beginnings to life in full achievements. From this incomplete life to that transformed one.
Edgar Allan Poe 1809 – 1849
The boundaries which divide life from death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where the one ends and where the other begins.
Comforting Death Quotes: R
Osho Rajneesh 1931 – 1990
Death is the greatest illusion of all.
Paradise is not somewhere else… it is within you.
And it is not in some other time, after death…
It is in you right now.
Ruth E. Renkel
Sometimes the poorest man leaves his children the richest inheritance.
Grantland Rice 1880 – 1954
When the One Great Scorer comes to write against your name, He marks not that you won or lost, but how you played the game.
Jean Paul Richter 1763 – 1825
Each departed friend is a magnet that attracts us to the next world.
Jalal Uddin Rumi 1207 – 1273
Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes, because for those who love with heart and Soul there is no such thing as separation.
Jalal Uddin Rumi 1207 – 1273
What comes will go. What is found, will be lost again. But, what you are is beyond coming and going and beyond destruction. You are it.
What strikes the oyster does not damage the pearl.
Comforting Death Quotes: S
Antoine de Saint-Exupery 1900 – 1944
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay more present than the living man.
Chief Seattle 1780 – 1866
There is no death, only a change of worlds.
I made this photo-quote before I knew the quote was specifically from Chief Seattle
Betty Shine 1929 – 2002
There is no such thing as death. We have all lived before and we are all going to experience new lives.
Michael Singer
It is truly a great cosmic paradox that one of the best teachers in all of life turns out to be death. No person or situation could ever teach you as much as death has to teach you. While someone could tell you that you are not your body, death shows you. While someone could remind you of the insignificance of the things that you cling to, death takes them all away in a second. While people can teach you that men and women of all races are equal and that there is no difference between the rich and the poor, death instantly makes us all the same.
Robert Louis Stevenson 1850 – 1894
If this is death, it is easier than life. (his final words)
Tom Stoppard 1937
Every exit is an entry somewhere else.
Comforting Death Quotes: T
Rabindranath Tagore 1861 – 1941
Death is not extinguishing the light, it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.
Mother Teresa 1910 – 1997
I am not sure exactly what heaven will be like, but I know that when we die and it comes time for God to judge us, He will not ask, “How many good things have you done in your life?” Rather He will ask, “How much love did you put into what you did?”
TV – Good Witch
We all live on in the differences we make.
Lao Tzu 600
If you realize that all things change, there is nothing you will try to hold on to. If you are not afraid of dying, there is nothing you cannot achieve.
Comforting Death Quotes: V
Toots Venables
Love is the greatest link that we have with those who have temporarily left us.
Leonardo da Vinci 1452 – 1519
As well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-spent brings happy death.
Comforting Death Quotes: W
William Ross Wallace 1819 – 1881
Every man dies… not every man really lives.
J. Neville Ward
Death does not kill love; in some ways it deepens it.
Alan Watts 1915 – 1973
You and I are all as much continuous with the physical Universe as a wave is continuous with the ocean.
Thornton Wilder 1897 – 1975
There is a land of the living and a land of the dead, and the bridge is love.. the only survival, the only meaning.
Anthony Douglas Williams
There are no limits to the amount of love and wisdom one can take to Heaven.
Robin Williams 1951 – 2014
May flights of Angels sing thee to thy rest, sweet prince.
(talking about Christopher Reeve)
Joseph B. Wirthlin 1917 – 2008
The dial on the wheel of sorrow eventually points to each of us. At one time or another, everyone must experience sorrow. No one is exempt. Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character and increase our compassion for others.
William Wordsworth 1770 – 1850
Memories: Images and precious thoughts that shall not die and cannot be destroyed.
Comforting Death Quotes: Z
Hans Zimmer 1957
My father died when I was a child, and I escaped somehow into the music and music has been my best friend.
Sympathy Poems/Readings
known sources
Sympathy Poems/Readings
unknown sources
Sympathy Poems/Readings
by Trina Graves
