30 Short Memorial Quotes (When Words Are Difficult)

If you’re looking for some suitable words to say in a time of grieving, then the following short memorial quotes can certainly help.

When someone close to us has passed on, it’s often hard to find the right words to say and to express how much they mean to us, but these short quotes can help articulate this during this difficult time.

There will be more to say, more to process and express, but for now, these simple but powerful quotes can help bring comfort and inspiration. You can use them for memorial services, as part of eulogies, in sympathy cards and even just to contemplate and help process your loss.

Short Memorial Quotes

“There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.” Mahatma Gandhi

“A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.” Maya Angelou

“That it will never come again is what makes life so sweet.” Emily Dickinson

“Say not in grief ‘he is no more’ but in thankfulness that he was.” Hebrew Proverb

“We do not remember days, we remember moments.” Cesare Pavese

“It is not length of life, but depth of life.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What we have once enjoyed we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” Helen Keller

“Neither fire nor wind, birth nor death can erase our good deeds.” Buddha

“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness, but of power. They speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues. They are the messengers of overwhelming grief, of deep contrition, and of unspeakable love.” Washington Irving

“The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.” Thornton Wilder

“The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.” Seneca

“One life on this earth is all that we get, whether it is enough or not enough, and the obvious conclusion would seem to be that at the very least we are fools if we do not live it as fully and bravely and beautifully as we can.” Frederick Buechner

“The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of those depths.” Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

“I’ll remember you. When I’ve forgotten all the rest. You to me were true. You to me were the best.” Bob Dylan

“Grief is in two parts. The first is loss. The second is the remaking of life.” Anne Roiphe

“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” Theodore Geisel

“Death ends a life, not a relationship.” Mitch Albom

“Only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footprints have left on our hearts.” Dorothy Ferguson

“You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly — that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” Anne Lamott

“Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.” Robert Louis Stevenson

“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.” Rumi

“To live in hearts, we leave behind is not to die.” Thomas Campbell

“Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.” Jiddu Krishnamurti

“There is no pain so great as the memory of joy in present grief.” Aeschylus

“Grief is never something you get over. You don’t wake up one morning and say, ‘I’ve conquered that; now I’m moving on.’ It’s something that walks beside you every day. And if you can learn how to manage it and honour the person that you miss, you can take something that is incredibly sad and have some form of positivity.” Terri Irwin

“The remembrance of the good done those we have loved is the only consolation when we have lost them.” Demoustier

“Death is not the opposite of life, but a part of it.” Haruki Murakami

“I believe that imagination is stronger than knowledge. That myth is more potent than history. That dreams are more powerful than facts. That hope always triumphs over experience. That laughter is the only cure for grief. And I believe that love is stronger than death.” Robert Fulghum

“Death is not extinguishing the light; it is only putting out the lamp because the dawn has come.” Rabindranath Tagore

“Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.” George Eliot

We never know what to say when someone dies, mainly because no words can truly do justice to the loss of a respected and loved life. Hopefully these quotes and sayings can provide even a sliver of comfort right now. Take care of yourself and your loved ones during this difficult time.

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