Heartache Quotes, Heartbreak, Broken Heart, Breakups, etc. (2023)

Love sings that he is deathless—
Then dies.
~James Oppenheim, "The Mortal," War and Laughter, 1916

To wound the heart is to create it. ~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), c.1968

...the beauty of the world which is so soon to perish, has two edges, one of laughter, one of anguish, cutting the heart asunder. ~Virginia Woolf, A Room of One's Own, 1929

Love lingers…
Sweet scent in an empty bottle.
~Barbara F. Craigie, "Love Lingers," in College Verse, November 1931

Sometimes I wish I were a little kid again, skinned knees are easier to fix than broken hearts. ~Author unknown

God is closest to those with broken hearts. ~Jewish proverb

God can heal a broken heart, but He has to have all the pieces. ~Author unknown

Your heart is burst, you have lost half your soul... ~William Shakespeare, Othello, c.1604

Funny how a broken heart keeps right on beating, isn't it? ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, Tammy Out of Time, 1958

[Robert] Anderson offers a final comfort that is small, but not cold: the heart is the only broken instrument that works. ~T.E. Kalem, "Solitaire / Double Solitaire," 1971

Giving up doesn't always mean you are weak; sometimes it means that you are strong enough to let go. ~Author unknown

Nothing remains but the bare, gray ashes from the once bright fires of love. ~James Lendall Basford (1845–1915), Seven Seventy Seven Sensations, 1897

'Never, never meet again,' he said; and was not her heart bleeding bitterly because he had said it? ~Charles Gibbon, The Flower of the Forest, 1882

Iron left in the rain
And fog and dew
With rust is covered.—Pain
Rusts in beauty, too.
I know full well that this is so:
— I had a heartbreak long ago.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Rust," Youth Riding, 1919

...he felt a dull, leaden weight upon his heart, which seemed to crush him down, down to the earth. ~Charles Gibbon, The Flower of the Forest, 1882

Come, ye disconsolate, where'er you languish,Come, at God's altar fervently kneel;Here bring your wounded hearts, here tell your anguish—Earth has no sorrow that Heaven cannot heal...~Thomas Moore, "Come, Ye Disconsolate"

Sadness flies on the wings of the morning, and out of the heart of darkness comes the light. ~Jean Giraudoux, The Madwoman of Chaillot, 1948, English adaptation by Maurice Valency

When love is lost, do not bow your head in sadness; instead keep your head up high and gaze into heaven for that is where your broken heart has been sent to heal. ~Author unknown

The old man's heart was sorely stung. ~Charles Gibbon, The Flower of the Forest, 1882

Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it's better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together. ~Author unknown

I hate the day, because it lendeth light
To see all things, and not my love to see...
~Edmund Spenser, "Daphnaida"

The broken heart is broadest. ~Emily Dickinson, 1881

Love is like a puzzle. When you're in love, all the pieces fit but when your heart gets broken, it takes a while to get everything back together. ~Author unknown

Oh, was there no loving without hurt? Was there no pure essence of love unpoisoned by pain and heartbreak? ~Cid Ricketts Sumner, But the Morning Will Come, 1949

Women's hearts are like old china, none the worse for a break or two. ~W. Somerset Maugham, Lady Frederick, 1907

Only the soul that knows the mighty grief
Can know the mighty rapture. Sorrows come
To stretch out spaces in the heart for joy.
~Edwin Markham, "Victory in Defeat," 1909

[N]o moment must be lost when a heart is breaking, for though it broke so long, each time is newer than the last, if it broke truly. ~Emily Dickinson

Bad as I like ye, it's worse without ye. ~Irish proverb

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 will fill the void. ~Pam Brown, To Someone Special, Wishing You Happiness, 2008, helenexley.com

My heart may be broken, but it will never stop loving. ~Jessica Garay, @sickwonderland, September 2009 entry to The Quote Garden create your own quote contest on Twitter, @quotegarden

...If we must part for ever,
Give me but one kind word to think upon,
And please myself withal, whilst my heart's breaking.
~Thomas Otway (1652–1685), The Orphan

She jilted him with a jolt that knocked his heart out of his mouth. ~Rupert Hughes, "Don't You Care!," In a Little Town, 1917

Walking, working, barely breathing
My thoughts, far away
Heart aching, mind racing
Sleep does not come easily, nor last long...
~Peter Winstanley

Ask me why I keep on loving you when it's clear that you don't feel the same way for me... the problem is that as much as I can't force you to love me, I can't force myself to stop loving you. ~Author unknown

When those we love betray our trust,
We find the depth of human pain;
Oh, let me rise above these hurts
Until the sun shines, once again!
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "My Prayer," 1940s

Maybe part of loving is learning to let go. ~The Wonder Years, "How I'm Spending My Summer Vacation," 1989, written by Jane Anderson

Once, when I was young and true,
Someone left me sad—
Broke my brittle heart in two;
And that is very bad.
Love is for unlucky folk,
Love is but a curse.
Once there was a heart I broke;
And that, I think, is worse.
~Dorothy Parker, "A Very Short Song," 1926

...tears are the safety valve of sorrow, and he who can weep will not die of a broken heart. ~Gustav Nieritz (1795–1876), "The Garden Grave," The Cobbler, the Clerk, and the Lawyer of Liebstein, translated from the German by Annie Harwood, 1868

Heartbreaks that are too new
Can not be used to make
Beauty that will startle.
That takes an old heartbreak.
Old heartbreaks are old wine.
Too new to pour is mine.
~Mary Carolyn Davies, "Vintage," Youth Riding, 1919

Soul sells life for the price of heartache. ~Terri Guillemets

'Tis not love's going hurts my days,
But that it went in little ways.
~Edna St. Vincent Millay, "The Spring and the Fall," The Harp-Weaver and Other Poems, 1923

...the heart is bold
That pain has made incapable of pain...
~Dorothy Parker (1893–1967), "Testament"

The water heaved and rushed. And the ship throbbed away, like a great, unfaithful heart, from the fading, mist-blurred land. ~Anita Vivanti Chartres (1866–1942), The Hunt for Happiness, 1896

The memory of an unkind word often outlasts the remembrance of many charitable acts. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861

My heart, my heart is heavy
Though May shines bright on all...
~Heinrich Heine, "Der Heimkehr," translated from German by Hal Draper

...he only loves me with a quarter of his heart... ~Jittie Martin Horlick (1881–1973), A String of Beads, 1911

...his heart enlarged and accepted so much emotion that there was a kind of rapture in the very power to ache so well... ~Rupert Hughes, The Thirteenth Commandment, 1916

The finest luxury of sentiment is the sense of being loved, and one flitting thought may destroy it. ~Thomas Clark Henley, A Handful of Paper Shavings, 1861

My heart has cried a deep red grief since you've been gone, pulsing crimson pain. ~Terri Guillemets

...Lost in your heart, lost in your eyes
Lost every day, no map to follow
Entire days, weeks, a blur
Flickers of light, in the darkness,
Only to be enveloped in shadows once more...
~Peter Winstanley

Love broken lies, a tassel of the wind
Caught on my breast...
~Olive Tilford Dargan (1869–1968)

I never knew until that moment how much it could hurt to lose something you never really had. ~The Wonder Years, "The St. Valentine's Day Massacre," 1990, written by Mark B. Perry

The more fiercely lovers love each other the more delicate are the antennæ of their souls, the more easily bruised. ~Rupert Hughes, The Thirteenth Commandment, 1916

In the arithmetic of love, one plus one equals everything, and two minus one equals nothing. ~Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic's Notebook, 1966, © Thomas Paine McLaughlin

Time catalogues heartbreak as love poetry. ~Terri Guillemets

How strange that the sun can be shining
And the world be looking so fair,
When my heart is downcast with sorrow
And pain that is so hard to bear!
How strange there is bright, children's laughter;
That gaiety reigns every place,
When darkness is swirling about me
And covering all of God's face!...
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "How Strange!," 1940s

How strange that the moon shines in glory
And the stars are wondrously bright,
When the one whom I thought had loved me
Has failed me, and now all is night!
How strange the sun rises each morning
And sets every night, as of yore,
When my heart is, so surely, breaking
For the one I'd loved more and more!
I pray God will heal all my heartache
And I'll o'ercome all of this pain;
That my soul may be filled with gladness,
And peace will be mine, once again.
~Gertrude Tooley Buckingham, "How Strange!," 1940s

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. ~Khalil Gibran (1883–1931), The Prophet

Even though your broken heart may never heal, bless those who help hold together the pieces. ~Terri Guillemets

They say "follow your heart," but if your heart is in a million pieces which piece do you follow? ~Author unknown

Sometimes what gets to you most isn't the large holes that get ripped from your heart but the fraying of its edges — when what held you together isn't anymore. ~Terri Guillemets

God! what a light has passed away from earth
Since my last look!...
How beautiful the yesterday that stood
Over me like a rainbow! I am alone.
The past is past. I see the future stretch
All dark and barren as a rainy sea.
~Alexander Smith, A Life-Drama

Love blooms petals, thorns, and nettles. ~Terri Guillemets

Numbing the pain for a while will make it worse when you finally feel it. ~J.K. Rowling, "The Parting of the Ways," Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, 2000

The love that makes you feel light as a feather is the love that makes your heart feel heaviest when it goes. ~Terri Guillemets

I prithee send me back my heart,
Since I cannot have thine:
For if from yours you will not part,
Why then should'st thou have mine!...
~John Suckling

Heartache awaits the next love as a seed awaits the spring. ~Terri Guillemets

There's May amid the meadows
There's May amid the trees...
Above the rippling river
May swallows skim and dart;
November and December
Keep watch within my heart.
~Amy Levy, "A Dirge," c.1884

The spring breathes in the breezes,
The woods with wood-notes ring,
And all the budding hedgerows
Are fragrant of the spring.
In secret, silent places
The live green things upstart;
Ice-bound, ice-crown'd dwells winter
For ever in my heart.
~Amy Levy, "A Dirge," c.1884

They say that time heals all wounds, but all it's done so far is give me more hours to think about how much I miss you. ~Terri Guillemets

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!
Didst thou but know how pale I sat at home,
My eyes still turn'd the way thou wert to come,
And, all the long, long night of hope and fear,
Thy voice and step still sounding in my ear...
~Thomas Moore, "Lalla Rookh," 1817

The flame of love is now just a cold loneliness. ~Terri Guillemets

Yes, I will go. I would rather grieve over your absence than over you. ~Antonio Porchia (1886–1968), Voces, 1943–1966, translated from the Spanish by W.S. Merwin (1927–2019), c.1968

Heartbreak wanders throughout the body — it's a lack of oxygen to the soul, a chain dragging from the mind, a poisoning of the blood, a sorrowful symphony drowning out all else. ~Terri Guillemets

I don't know why they call it heartbreak — it feels like every other part of my body is broken too. ~Terri Guillemets

A broken spirit is shattered pieces of poetry waiting to be made whole. ~Terri Guillemets

Let no one who loves be called altogether unhappy. Even love unreturned has its rainbow... ~James Matthew Barrie, The Little Minister

I'm holding a teardrop for a friend
Until his heartache and misery end.
~Terri Guillemets

A heartbreak is a blessing from God. It's just his way of letting you realize he saved you from the wrong one. ~Author unknown

You flew off with the wings of my heart and left me flightless. ~Terri Guillemets

published 2000 Dec 23
revised 2021 Jul 16
last saved 2023 Mar 25
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