Funeral Etiquette
Including Sympathy Quotes in a Condolence Card
Used as epitaphs, in condolence cards and put on the cover of funeral programs, sympathy quotes by famous and not so famous people often can express the exact and most heartfelt words needed when writing a sympathy card.
Here are some well known sympathy quotes:
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. ~Robert Ingersoll
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran
A human life is a story told by God. ~Hans Christian Andersen
To live in hearts we leave behind. Is not to die. ~Thomas Campbell, “Hallowed Ground”
We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa
While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~John Taylor
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight. ~Rossiter Worthington Raymond
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. ~Kahlil Gibran
He kept at true good humour’s mark. The social flow of pleasure’s tide: He never made a brow look dark, nor caused a tear, but when he died. ~Thomas Love Peacock
Tears are God’s gift to us. Our holy water. They heal us as they flow. ~Rita Schiano, Sweet Bitter Love
When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. ~Author Unknown
If tears could build a stairway, and memories a lane, I’d walk right up to Heaven And bring you home again. ~Author Unknown
It is the will of God and Nature that these mortal bodies be laid aside, when the soul is to enter into real life; ’tis rather an embrio state, a preparation for living; a man is not completely born until he be dead: Why then should we grieve that a new child is born among the immortals? ~Benjamin Franklin, 22 February 1756
With what a deep devotedness of woe. I wept thy absence – o’er and o’er again, thinking of thee, still thee, till thought grew pain. And memory, like a drop that, night and day, falls cold and ceaseless, wore my heart away! ~Thomas Moore
For some moments in life there are no words. ~David Seltzer, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory
And with the morn those angel faces smile. Which I have loved long since and lost awhile. ~John Henry Newman
The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God. ~Quoted in The Angels’ Little Instruction Book by Eileen Elias Freeman, 1994
Good-night! good-night! as we so oft have said. Beneath this roof at midnight, in the days. That are no more, and shall no more return. Thou hast but taken up thy lamp and gone to bed; I stay a little longer, as one stays. To cover up the embers that still burn. ~Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. ~Emily Dickinson
Perhaps they are not the stars, but rather openings in Heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy. ~Author Unknown
When he shall die. Take him and cut him out in little stars. And he will make the face of heav’n so fine. That all the world will be in love with night. And pay no worship to the garish sun. ~William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
Although it’s difficult today to see beyond the sorrow. May looking back in memory help comfort you tomorrow. ~Author Unknown
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. ~William Penn
While we’re mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~John Taylor
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland
A human life is a story told by God. ~Hans Christian Andersen
In the night of death, hope sees a star, and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing. ~Robert Ingersoll
To live in hearts we leave behind, is not to die. ~Thomas Campbell, “Hallowed Ground”
Oh heart, if one should say to you that the soul perishes like the body, answer that the flower withers, but the seed remains. ~Kahlil Gibran
When someone you love becomes a memory, the memory becomes a treasure. ~Unknown
Good men must die, but death can not kill their names. ~Proverbs
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. ~William Penn
Tears are God’s gift to us. Our holy water. They heal us as they flow. ~Rita Schiano
I look at life as a gift of God. Now that he wants it back I have no right to complain. ~Joyce Cary
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight. ~Kahlil Gibran
Unto God, the Lord belong the issues of death. ~Psalm 68:20
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality. ~Emily Dickinson
We must embrace pain and burn it as fuel for our journey. ~Kenji Miyazawa
Blessed are those who mourn; for they shall be comforted. ~Matthew 5:4
For some moments in life there are no words. ~David Seltzer
The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God. ~Unknown
A grave is braced not just by a tombstone but by angels as well. ~Adabella Radici
Death— the last sleep? No the final awakening. ~Walter Scott
The angels are always near to those who are grieving, to whisper to them that their loved ones are safe in the hand of God. ~Eileen Elias Freeman
When you are sorrowful look again in your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping
for that which has been your delight. ~Kahil Gibran
He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man. ~Antoine de Saint-Exupery
While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil. ~John Taylor
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die. ~Thomas Campbell
If ever there is tomorrow when we’re not together…there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think, but the most important thing is, even if we’re apart…I’ll always be with you. ~Winnie the Pooh
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies. ~William Penn
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal. ~From a headstone in Ireland
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. ~Albert Einstein
While I thought that I was learning how to live, I have been learning how to die. ~Leonardo Davinci
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well used brings happy death. ~Leonardo Davinci
Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on the earth. ~Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity. ~Seneca
The greatest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude. ~Thornton Wilder
For death is no more than a turning of us over from time to eternity. ~William Penn
A human life is a story told by God. ~Hans Christian Anderse
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