In today’s uncertain world, there are a million and one things that can knock us sideways: not spending as much time with loved ones as we’d like due to the ongoing pandemic, nursing a broken heart, the stress of being pulled in too many directions, and even grief, guilt, or anxiety over big changes. When you feel blue, it’s important to remember that sadness is just one of the many emotions we experience as we navigate the ups and downs of life. Eventually, your changing feelings will have you jumping for joy… but it’s okay to embrace the suck, have a good, cathartic cry, and pause for a moment to work out what you are going through, and take the time to figure out your next steps. To help you get through a challenging day, we have put together some of the best sad quotes and sayings about feeling sad that we hope will encourage you to look forward to a brighter day tomorrow! Here are sad quotes to read, quotes about sadness and sadness quotes, as well as quotes to feel when you are feeling sad.
75 Sad Quotes
- “You cannot protect yourself from sadness without protecting yourself from happiness.” ― Jonathan Safran Foer
- “Sadness flies away on the wings of time.” ― Jean de La Fontaine
- “Don’t cry over someone who wouldn’t cry over you.” ― Lauren Conrad
- “Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.” ― Clive Barker, Abarat: Days of Magic, Nights of War
- “We must understand that sadness is an ocean, and sometimes we drown, while other days we are forced to swim.” ― R.M. Drake
- “The word ‘happy’ would lose its meaning if it were not balanced by sadness.” — Carl Jung
- “Tears are words that need to be written.” ― Paulo Coelho
- “Sadness is but a wall between two gardens.” ― Kahlil Gibran, Sand and Foam
- “One must not let oneself be overwhelmed by sadness.” ― Jacqueline Kennedy-Onassis
- “Sadness is also a kind of defense.” — Ivo Andrich
- “The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keeps out the joy.” — Jim Rohn
- “There are moments when I wish I could roll back the clock and take all the sadness away, but I have a feeling that if I did, the joy would be gone as well. So, I take the memories as they come, accepting them all, letting them guide me whenever I can.” ― Nicholas Sparks, Dear John
- “We’re taught to be ashamed of confusion, anger, fear, and sadness, and to me, they’re of equal value to happiness, excitement, and inspiration.” — Alanis Morrisette
- “Experiencing sadness and anger can make you feel more creative, and by being creative you can get beyond your pain or negativity.” — Yoko Ono
- “Sad hurts but it’s a healthy feeling. It is a necessary thing to feel.” — J.K. Rowling
- “There are two types of people in the world: Those who prefer to be sad among others, and those who prefer to be sad alone.” ― Nicole Krauss, The History of Love
- “With some pain is fraught; Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.” — Percy Bysshe Shelley, “To a Skylark”
- “It is sad not to love, but it is much sadder not to be able to love.” — Miguel de Unamuno
- “Behind every sweet smile, there is a bitter sadness that no one can ever see and feel.” — Tupac Shakur
- “Every man has his secret sorrows which the world knows not; and often times we call a man cold when he is only sad.” ― Henry Wadsworth Longfellow RELATED: 101 Songs About Depression
- “Some days are just bad days, that’s all. You have to experience sadness to know happiness, and I remind myself that not every day is going to be a good day, that’s just the way it is!” — Dita Von Teese
- “In deep sadness there is no place for sentimentality.” ― William S. Burroughs, Queer
- “Every human walks around with a certain kind of sadness. They may not wear it on their sleeves, but it’s there if you look deep.” — Taraji P. Henson
- “Better by far you should forget and smile than that you should remember and be sad.” ― Christina Rossetti, Pre-Raphaelite Poetry: An Anthology
- “We never taste happiness in perfection, our most fortunate successes are mixed with sadness.” — Pierre Corneille
- “The good life is not one immune to sadness but one in which suffering contributes to our development.” — Alain de Botton
- “Boredom, anger, sadness, or fear are not ‘yours,’ not personal. They are conditions of the human mind. They come and go. Nothing that comes and goes is you.” — Eckhart Tolle
- “When you feel sad, it’s okay. It’s not the end of the world.” — Mac Miller
- “It doesn’t hurt to feel sad from time to time.” — Willie Nelson
- “Melancholy is the happiness of being sad.” ― Victor Hugo
- “Sad things happen. They do. But we don’t need to live sad forever.” — Mattie Stepanek
- “The good times of today, are the sad thoughts of tomorrow.” — Bob Marley
- “It’s sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.” — Henry Rollins
- “Tears come from the heart and not from the brain.” — Leonardo da Vinci
- “A million words would not bring you back, I know because I tried, neither would a million tears, I know because I cried.” — Unknown
- “One thing you can’t hide is when you’re crippled inside.” — John Lennon, “Crippled Inside”
- “Things change. And friends leave. Life doesn’t stop for anybody.” — Stephen Chbosky, The Perks of Being a Wallflower
- “I have learned now that while those who speak about one’s miseries usually hurt, those who keep silence hurt more.” ― S. Lewis RELATED: 101 Quotes About Depression to Help You Not Feel So Alone
- “Breathing is hard. When you cry so much, it makes you realize that breathing is hard.” — David Levithan, Love is the Higher Law
- “To have felt too much is to end in feeling nothing.” — Dorothy Thompson
- “People keep telling me that life goes on, but to me that’s the saddest part.” — Unknown
- “Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect. We take what we get and are thankful it’s no worse than it is.” ― Margaret Mitchell, Gone with the Wind
- “There is no despair so absolute as that which comes with the first moments of our first great sorrow, when we have not yet known what it is to have suffered and be healed, to have despaired and have recovered hope.” — George Eliot, Middlemarch
- “As the light begins to intensify, so does my misery, and I wonder how it is possible to hurt so much when nothing is wrong.” ― Tabitha Suzuma, Forbidden
- “Sometimes you’ve got to be able to listen to yourself and be okay with no one else understanding.” — Unknown
- “Tears are words the mouth can’t say nor can the heart bear.” ― Joshua Wisenbaker
- “Heavy hearts, like heavy clouds in the sky, are best relieved by the letting of a little water.” ― Christopher Morley
- “What brings us to tears, will lead us to grace. Our pain is never wasted.” — Bob Goff
- “Every life has a measure of sorrow, and sometimes this is what awakens us.” ― Steven Tyler
- “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” — Rumi
- “It is sadder to find the past again and find it inadequate to the present than it is to have it elude you and remain forever a harmonious conception of memory.” — F. Scott Fitzgerald
- “I always like walking in the rain, so no one can see me crying.” — Charlie Chaplin
- “There is no sadder sight than a young pessimist, except an old optimist.” ― Mark Twain
- “Sadness usually results from one of the following causes either when a man does not succeed or is ashamed of his success.” — Seneca
- “There is no worse sorrow than remembering happiness in the day of sorrow.” ― Alfred de Musset
- “Sorrow is one of the vibrations that prove the fact of living.” — Antoine de Saint-Exupery
- “When you’re happy, you enjoy the music but when you’re sad, you understand the lyrics.” — Frank Ocean RELATED: 100 Anxiety Quotes to Lift Your Spirits
- “So much sadness exists in the world that we are all under obligation to contribute as much joy as lies within our powers.” — Rev. Dr. John Sutherland Bonnell
- “People cry, not because they are weak. It is because they’ve been strong for too long.” ― Johnny Depp
- “Life is too ironic to fully understand. It takes sadness to know what happiness is. Noise to appreciate silence and absence to value presence.” ― Abhysheq Shukla, KARMA
- “He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness.” — Alexandre Dumas, The Count of Monte Cristo
- “When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling.” ― Yann Martel, Life of Pi
- “The sky cries for those filled with sadness.” ― Sonya Watson, The Tide Breaker
- “Sadness is the ambrosia of all art.” ― Frances Fong
- “Do not feel sad for your tears as rocks never regret the waterfalls.” ― Munia Khan
- “Trying to avoid sadness is trying to avoid life.” — Maxime Lagacé
- “Never be afraid of tears. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing truth. Tear-filled eyes are capable of seeing the beauty of life.” — Osho
- “Your greatest highs come from overcoming your greatest lows.” ― Matshona Dhliwayo
- “Learning is a gift. Even when pain is your teacher.” — Maya Watson
- “When I despair, I remember that all through history the way of truth and love have always won.” — Mahatma Gandhi
- “Be strong now because things will get better. It might be stormy now, but it can’t rain forever” — Unknown
- “I do believe that if you haven’t learnt about sadness, you cannot appreciate happiness.” — Nana Mouskouri
- “Nothing can cure the soul but the senses, just as nothing can cure the senses but the soul.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
- “Maybe we all have darkness inside of us and some of us are better at dealing with it than others.” — Jasmine Warga, My Heart and Other Black Holes
- “First, accept sadness. Realize that without losing, winning isn’t so great.” — Alyssa Milano Next, check out these 100 quotes to get you through a tough time.