Saddest Quotes
More Saddest Quotes
If, of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are,'It might have been,' More sad are these we daily see: 'It is, but hadn't ought to be.'
— 1871 'Mrs. Judge Jenkins'.
The melancholy days are come, the saddest of the year,Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sere.
william cullen bryant— Death of the Flowers (1832), st. 1.
If of all words of tongue and pen, The saddest are, "It might have been," More sad are these we daily see, "It is, but it hadn't ought to be."
bret harte— Bret Harte, Mrs. Jenkins
The melancholy days have come, the saddest of the year. Of wailing winds, and naked woods, and meadows brown and sear.
william cullen bryant— William Cullen Bryant, The Death of the Flowers.
A man willing to work, and unable to find work, is perhaps the saddest sight that fortune's inequality exhibits under the sun.
thomas carlyle— 1839 Chartism, ch.4.
The saddest and most beautiful sight I have ever seen.
Kenny Dalglish— 1989 Of the display of flowers and club scarfs that were piled on Liverpool's Anfield pitch in memory of those who died in the Hillsborough football disaster. Quoted in Peter Ball and Phil Shaw The Book of Football Quotations (1989).
The saddest life is that of a political aspirant under democracy. His failure is ignominious and his success is disgraceful.
— 1929 In the Baltimore Evening Sun, 9 Dec.
The saddest object in civilization, and to my mind the greatest confession of its failure, is the man who can work, who wants work, and who is not allowed to work.
Robert Louis Stevenson— Quoted by Lloyd Osbourne in'The Death of Stevenson', preface toTusitala edition of Weir of Hermiston (published1924).
One of the saddest features of the real world is that goods do not spontaneously present themselves for distribution.
The Economist— 1994 The Economist, 5 Nov.
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: 'It might have been!'
john greenleaf whittier— 1854 'Maud Muller', l.105-6.
Well As for now I'm gonna hear the saddest songsAnd sit alone and wonderHow you're making outBut as for me, I wish that I was anywhere with anyoneMaking out.
chris carrabba— Screaming Infidelities
"In great misfortunes," he told himself, "people want to be alone. They have a right to be. And the misfortunes that occur within one are the greatest. Surely the saddest thing in the world is falling out of love — if once one has ever fallen in."Falling out, for him, seemed to mean falling out of all domestic and social relations, out of his place in the human family, indeed.
willa cather— Book III, Ch. 4
It always seems to me that one of the saddest things about the death of a literary man is the fact that the breaking-up of his collection of books almost invariably follows; the building up of a good library, the work of a lifetime, has been so much labour lost, so far as future generations are concerned. Talent, yes, and genius too, are displayed not only in writing books but also in buying them, and it is a pity that the ruthless hammer of the auctioneer should render so much energy and skill fruitless.
stuart dodgson collingwood— The Life and Letters of Lewis Carroll (1898) p. 136
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.
ford madox ford— Part One, Ch. I (p. 3) first line; Ford had originally intended the work to be titled The Saddest Story.
The saddest thing that befalls a soulIs when it loses faith in God and woman.
alexander smith— Scene 12.
The saddest birds a season find to sing,The roughest storm a calm may soon allay;Thus with succeeding turns God tempereth all,That men may hope to rise yet fear to fall.
robert southwell— Line 15; p. 47.
The world's saddest man will live here in Los Angeles.
ringo starr— "Fastest Growing Heartache In The West," from Beaucoups Of Blues (1970)
Alas for maiden, alas for Judge,For rich repiner and household drudge!God pity them both! and pity us all,Who vainly the dreams of youth recall;For of all sad words of tongue or pen,The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
john greenleaf whittier— Bret Harte wrote a famous parody of this famous poem, "Mrs. Judge Jenkins" in which the Judge marries Maud, and which he ends with the lines:Maud soon thought the Judge a bore,With all his learning and all his lore;And the Judge would have bartered Maud's fair faceFor more refinement and social grace.If, of all words of tongue and pen,The saddest are, "It might have been,"More sad are these we daily see:"It is, but hadn't ought to be".
I'm saddest when I sing.
thomas haynes bayly— You think I have a merry heart, reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919). Compare: "I can’t sing. As a singist I am not a success. I am saddest when I sing. So are those who hear me. They are sadder even than I am", Artemus Ward, Lecture.
The tragedy starts from the very first spark Losing your mind for the sake of your heart The saddest part of a broken heart Isn't the ending so much as the start.
leslie feist— "Let It Die"
The saddest kind of sad is the sad that tries not to be sad. You know, when Sad tries to bite its lip and not cry and smile and go, "No, I'm happy for you?" That's when it's really sad.
john mayer— Rolling Stone magazine/iTunes podcast (December 2005)On the "chin-up sad" tone of one of his new songs on his upcoming album "Continuum"
This is the saddest story I have ever heard.
— Part One, Ch. I (p. 3) first line; Ford had originally intended the work to be titled The Saddest Story.
For all sad words of tongue and pen, The saddest are these, 'It might have been'.
john greenleaf whittier— American Quaker poet and advocate of the abolition of slavery in the United States
I believe that into the weakest, saddest heart that opens to receive this Divine Guest, the Father and the Son will come and abide; and the exalted joy that abiding brings, what words can express! The Divine dwelling in the human, the Infinite in the finite, how marvelous! how glorious! This must be the real foretaste of heavenly joy the truest heaven we can know on earth.
— P. 278. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
The Moral is that gardeners pine, Whene'er no pods adorn the vine. Of all sad words experience gleans, The saddest are: "It might have beans." (I did not make this up myself: 'Twas in a book upon my shelf. It's witty, but I don't deny It's rather Whittier than I).
— Guy Wetmore Carryl, Haw Jack found that Beans may go back an a Chap
For of all sad words of tongue or pen, The saddest are these: "It might have been!"
john greenleaf whittier— John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller, line 105.
The saddest of all failures is that of a soul, with its capabilities and possibilities, failing of life everlasting, and entering upon that night of death upon which morning never dawns.
— Herrick Johnson, p. 560. (Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895))
Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
Percy Bysshe Shelley— Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark.
I'm saddest when I sing.
thomas haynes bayly— Thomas Haynes Bayly, You think I have a merry heart.
