Quotes & Sayings About Letting Someone Go

It's a lot harder to get someone OUT of your life than it is to let them IN, so please ... be selective. — Mandy Hale

When I say I'm going to forget you I know it's impossible to forget someone I once knew. What I want is to erase you from my thoughts and purge you from my memories. I'm saying it's what I wish for, not what is or could ever be. — Donna Lynn Hope

What you need to find is someone who never will let you go ... — Greyson Chance

You can meet someone who's just right, but he might not be meant for you. You break up, you lose things, you never feel the same again. But maybe you should stop questioning why. Maybe you should just accept it and move on. — Winna Efendi

Forgiving someone doesn't mean pretending nothing happened. Rather, it means releasing the burden of anger and obsession so you can move on with your life. — Charles F. Glassman

When you hug someone,
never be the first to let go. — H. Jackson Brown Jr.

Sometimes ... the hardest part about letting someone go is realizing that you were never meant to have them. — Rebecca Serle

Forgiveness is not about forgetting. It is about letting go of another person's throat ... Forgiveness does not create a relationship. Unless people speak the truth about what they have done and change their mind and behavior, a relationship of trust is not possible. When you forgive someone you certainly release them from judgment, but without true change, no real relationship can be established ... Forgiveness in no way requires that you trust the one you forgive. But should they finally confess and repent, you will discover a miracle in your own heart that allows you to reach out and begin to build between you a bridge of reconciliation ... Forgiveness does not excuse anything ... You may have to declare your forgiveness a hundred times the first day and the second day, but the third day will be less and each day after, until one day you will realize that you have forgiven completely. And then one day you will pray for his wholeness ... — Wm. Paul Young

Apathy is, too often, a result of overexposure to stressful, highly emotional situations. To rekindle empathy, sometimes we need some space. It's okay to walk away so that you can feel love for someone again. Sometimes for a moment. Sometimes forever. — Vironika Tugaleva

I have calculated the total number of hours
we spend sleeping beside each other in a week
and I wanted to tell you it could be considered
a full-time job. We could be eligible for healthcare
benefits, could probably even pay for a mortgage
by now. I remind myself of this, in daylight, when
I miss you and cannot reach across the bed
for the comforting filling and refilling
of your chest. Such a strange affair
we are having on each other; these hours
that I have not lost but do not remember.
This cannot be the best of love: to drool
on someone's collarbone or inhale an elbow to
the jaw or be woken by the most ungraceful sounds
of the body. But what is it if not the softening
of grips? A letting go of. Your heart
finally slowly that stubborn, lonely march. — Sierra DeMulder

With shaking hands, I hold the letter and slide my back down the wall until I'm on the floor. My tears drop on what he's written, leaving blurred ink in its place. I cry for everything that's lost. I cry that he gave up. I cry for the anger in his words. I cry that he's found someone that has made him consider letting me go. I cry for the day I ever met him and thought I could handle someone like him. I cry that the girl he met that day in the restaurant is long gone.
And I cry because I don't know what to do with this person that's left. — Willow Aster

One can simply never take back the words he spoke.
And when you know you unintentionally did hurt someone, instead of letting it go or keeping a distance from that person, you can actually do something to mend the broken. That's the least we can do, when circumstances never are on our side; we can stick to our words and promises even if people change and fate ruins.. — Sanhita Baruah

When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear ... When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all. — Gerald G. Jampolsky

Hate is a terrible thing. It's a wasteful, stupid emotion. You can hate someone with all your heart, but it'll never do them a bit of harm. The only person it hurts is you. You can spend your days hating, letting it eat away at you, and the person you hate will go on living just the same. So, what's the point? — Stuart Neville

When someone you love says goodbye you can stare long and hard at the door they closed and forget to see all the doors God has open in front of you. — Shannon L. Alder

Have you ever lost someone close to you? Someone who is at the core of your universe, the hero of all your stories...when that happens, it isn't just the loss of one life, it's the loss of two lives - one who found another world, perhaps...and one who is left behind. — Faraaz Kazi

Even as I hold you
I think of you as someone gone
far, far away. Your eyes the color
of pennies in a bowl of dark honey
bringing sweet light to someone else
your black hair slipping through my fingers
is the flash of your head going
around a corner
your smile, breaking before me,
the flippant last turn
of a revolving door,
emptying you out, changed,
away from me.
Even as I hold you
I am letting go. — Alice Walker

I feel vulnerable when my ego is threatened - if I get jealous of another band's good time slot at a big festival, if I'm about to get clobbered in a political debate, if I'm trying to impress someone I have a crush on. It's the opposite of openness, letting go, allowing deep feelings to express themselves. For me, that comes from playing music and from kissing. — Greg Saunier

Everyone knows pain. We are not meant to carry it forever. We were never meant to hold it so closely, so be certain in the belief that what pain belongs to now will belong soon to then. That when someone asks you how was your day, realize that for some of us - it's the only way we know how to say, be calm. Loosen your grip, opening each palm, slowly now - let go. — Shane Koyczan

A competitive and insecure woman will tell you that "true love" is never giving up on someone you're in love with. A confident and spiritual woman knows that "moving on" doesn't mean you never loved someone. She realizes that letting go is what God needs her to do because both your happiness and hers requires taking different journeys for spiritual growth. Letting go is sometimes the hardest thing, but it is the most "real love" you will ever experience. — Shannon L. Alder

Loving someone is setting them free, letting them go. — Kate Winslet

Letting go is easy. Anyone can do that. Love is fighting for someone to stay. That's what takes work. — Katie Kacvinsky

There is nothing more vulnerable than caring for someone; it means not only giving your energy to that which is not you but also caring for that which is beyond or outside your control. Caring is anxious - to be full of care, to be careful, is to take care of things by becoming anxious about their future, where the future is embodied in the fragility of an object whose persistence matters. Becoming caring is not about becoming good or nice: people who have "being caring" as their ego ideal often act in quite uncaring ways in order to protect their good image of themselves. To care is not about letting an object go but holding on to an object by letting oneself go, giving oneself over to something that is not one's own. — Sara Ahmed

Chances are if you find yourself caught up in a political foofaraw at work, or in some family squabble at home, it's because someone else is succeeding in convincing you that his problem is your problem. The non-self-destructor recognizes this and as soon as possible, gives the sleepless night back to the person to whom it belongs. — Jason Seiden

If there ever was someone who had a control over you, someone who could cause you the greatest pain, someone who could ignore your most necessary requirements and someone for whom forgiveness were truly difficult to render, that person is none other than YOU. — Stephen Richards

It's effortless to let go of self-absorbed people. It's challenging to let go of someone you care about and it's exceedingly difficult to let go of an ideal and a belief in someone because what exacerbates the disappointment of finding out they weren't who they presented themselves to be, is the betrayal of it. — Donna Lynn Hope

Today may be your last chance to be you, someone you forgot to completely immerse yourself in because you were too worried about the details. The details that, no matter how many times you thought them through, brought you no closer to understanding. They just tied up your mind and prevented you from really letting in the things you love. Your demon that is standing before the beautiful floodgate and is keeping you in a dehydrated nothingness.
Give him permission to walk away. He is not your keeper. You are his. — Brianna Wiest

If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you're allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind. — Shannon L. Alder

Sometimes letting someone go is the ultimate act of love. — Cassia Leo

You're absolved," I tell him.
He brings his eyes back up to mine. There's no fucking way he knows what that word means. That's a word I dream someone will say to me.
So I put it in his language. "You're free. — Hannah Moskowitz

Sometimes the way to share your love is to let someone go. — Bryant McGill

The wrong kind of guy to fall in love with is the guy who will let go of the steering wheel as a joke. A guy who finds it amusing to make you uncomfortable, which is more common than you'd think, is someone you want to avoid. — An Na

When you know something or someone in your life is unhealthy or unproductive, that you have grown beyond where they are and where they want to keep you, you must let go. If you tell yourself you do not see it when you do, or if you tell yourself it will get better, you are not being honest with yourself. Stop trying to fix things or change things. Simply let go. — Iyanla Vanzant

Walking alone is not difficult but when we have walked a mile worth a thousand years with someone then coming back alone is what is difficult. — Faraaz Kazi

Relationships take up energy; letting go of them, psychiatrists theorize, entails mental work. When you lose someone you were close to, you have to reassess your picture of the world and your place in it. The more your identity was wrapped up with the deceased, the more difficult the loss. — Meghan O'Rourke

Every time you sort of let go of the bar, you knew someone was there to catch you, and vice versa. And, I mean, come on. It's Method Man. It's been a dream to meet him forever. — Josh Peck

If you want to really love someone, you've got to let go and loosen up and just care. — Adam Duritz

If you want to forget something or someone, never hate it, or never hate him/her. Everything and everyone that you hate is engraved upon your heart; if you want to let go of something, if you want to forget, you cannot hate. — C. JoyBell C.

If we can't forget, how can we forgive? I believe that forgiving can't be done by willpower alone. I can will myself to write out my own memories and feelings. I can will myself to imagine onto the page how someone else may have felt. I can will myself to research someone else's life in order to better understand what happened. But I don't think I can forgive by simply willing to forgive. Forgiving happens to us when our hearts are ready. Sometimes it takes the form of working on our own story until quietly, often surprisingly, we simply let go of the hurt. Sometimes forgiving makes it possible to pick up the pieces of a broken relationship and begin again. Sometimes it means letting a relationship go. We can't forgive through willpower. What we can do is work toward readiness of heart. Writing as a spiritual practice can be that kind of work.
When our heart is ready, we often don't even know it until forgiveness happens within us. It is a gift. — Pat Schneider

I think about this, not like someone thinking, but like someone breathing,
And I look at flowers and I smile...
I don't know if they understand me
Or if I understand them,
But I know the truth is in them and in me
And in our common divinity
Of letting ourselves go and live on the Earth
And carrying us in our arms through the contented Seasons
And letting the wind sing us to sleep
And not have dreams in our sleep. — Alberto Caeiro

A sad thing in life is that sometimes you meet someone who means a lot to you, only to find out in the end it was never bound to be, and you just have to let go. — Will Smith

We all lose someone at some point in our lives,
But don't ever let go of that smile.
Hold on forever,
Because that's our final dedication. — Danny Worsnop

Our loves ones truly are ever-present. We may bury their bodies or scatter their ashes, but their spirits are boundless and do not accompany them to the grave. The terms 'letting go' and 'closure' are just empty words. They mean nothing to someone who has suffered through the death of a loved one. Instead of insisting on figuratively burying our dead, why not keep them close to us? Love doesn't die when we do. — April Slaughter

Someone has said that the marks of a strong church are wet eyes, bent knees, and a broken heart. We'll never be powerful until we let God be God and jealously guard His honor. — Erwin W. Lutzer

To extend compassion to a so-called villain, to forgive those who have wronged you, and to find common ground with someone who has been awfully isolated are not acts typically met with fireworks and swelling violins. More often than not, they are pushed away. To love, really love, is to do them anyway. — Vironika Tugaleva

If one is okay with police having guns - whoever is designated as having authority - but panicked at the thought of their fellow man or themselves having guns, then that is someone who does not think like a free person. He places a magical aura around whoever is in charge and only thinks they can wield power. This will come up again in other areas, such as letting government make economic decisions but fearing individual people making those decisions themselves. — Frank J. Fleming

Love is proved the moment you let go of someone because they need you to. — Shannon L. Alder

Sometimes the only reason why you
won't let go of someone making you
sad is because he was the only one
that once made you happy. — Lily Amis

I realized how hard it that must have been, how much hurt when you know the only way to help someone is to give him distance. So I let him go. — Katie Kacvinsky

Sometimes we may seem to be resisting letting go, when really, we just can't see a way to move forward - believing things can never change for someone as unworthy as us. — Bryant McGill

If you truly love someone, have the faith to 'let them go.' Encourage them to be the fullest measure of themselves, and you will be overwhelmed by the love that your spouse returns to you. — Seth Adam Smith

Robert held back in the press, letting others go after the rebels fleeing before the charge. Their orders were to slaughter anyone found in the streets to provoke a quick surrender, after which mercy would be granted to those left alive. He had seen death throughout his life, but the duel he'd had with Guy was the closest he'd come to ending someone's life and even then there had been rules imposed. There were no such boundaries here. The freedom to kill was a dizzying, precipitous feeling. But the veteran knights were pushing in behind him, forcing the issue. With a snarl of frustration at his own hesitation, Robert fixed on one man darting away down an alley and spurred his horse out of the crush in pursuit. — Robyn Young

Forgiving doesn't mean forgetting, nor does it mean approving of, what someone did. It just means that you're letting go of the anger toward that person. — Frank Sonnenberg

Don't allow someone not worth it to have the power to occupy your thoughts. If they don't find you worth the effort or the time, why should you waste yours? — Donna Lynn Hope

I'm not letting you go. I'll fight my corner. You deserve for someone to fight for you. — Belle Aurora

She couldn't help wondering if that was how one made the decision to forgive or not. If letting go hurt more than accepting someone's mistakes. — C.C. Hunter

For God's sake, if I learned anything during this damn trial it's that the only way someone can leave you is if you let them. And I'm not doing that, Dee. It may look like that today, or tomorrow, or even a month from now, but one day you're going to wake up and see that this whole time you've been gone, you've only been headed back to where you started. And I'll be there, waiting." He leans forward and kisses me once, feather-light, on the lips. "It's not like I'm not letting you go," he murmurs. "I'm just trusting you enough to come back. — Jodi Picoult

Reading is merely a surrogate for thinking for yourself; it means letting someone else direct your thoughts. Many books, moreover, serve merely to show how many ways there are of being wrong, and how far astray you yourself would go if you followed their guidance. You should read only when your own thoughts dry up, which will of course happen frequently enough even to the best heads; but to banish your own thoughts so as to take up a book is a sin against the holy ghost; it is like deserting untrammeled nature to look at a herbarium or engravings of landscapes. — Arthur Schopenhauer

the betrayal of disengagement. Of not caring. Of letting the connection go. Of not being willing to devote time and effort to the relationship. The word betrayal evokes experiences of cheating, lying, breaking a confidence, failing to defend us to someone else who's gossiping about us, and not choosing us over other people. These behaviors are certainly betrayals, but they're not the only form of betrayal. If I had to choose the form of betrayal that emerged most frequently from my research and that was the most dangerous in terms of corroding the trust connection, I would say disengagement. — Brene Brown

In the end, a lack of compatibility is what ruins relationships. You can't force someone to be an eagle when they are a duck. Nobody wants to fly solo. Dreams were meant to be shared together. — Shannon L. Alder

She realised that letting someone go was setting them free. — Lisa Scottoline

Angel was someone he'd never imagined having in his life, but always hoped for. She was more than worth the wait, and he was never letting her go. — Katie Reus

I clung to him like my life depended on it. Maybe it did. I hadn't seen him for so many years, and so much had happened in my life since I had last seen his face, but at that moment I was thirteen again. Someone I had loved had returned, someone lost had come back to me, and I held him fiercely, with no intention of ever letting him go. — Amy Harmon

Sometimes,' he starts, 'the hardest part about letting someone go is realizing you were never meant to have them. — Rebecca Serle

But here is the thing about anger: People hold onto it because letting go means dealing with pain. It is a coping strategy that seems to show strength and confidence, but in reality it shows how much you care about someone's actions, which leads to this question: Why is this person's respect so important to you? — Shannon L. Alder

It was as if someone had left
the bird there
as a kind of telegram
of feathers, oily feathers
that looked like they'd struggled,
shuttered a little before letting go
into flight
forever. — Kristen Henderson

No one teaches you how to do this. How do you let go of someone who you love so much? — Kathy Griffin

By letting go of dieting, I free up mental and emotional room. I have more space, I can move. The pursuit of another, elusive body, the body someone else says I should have, is a terrible distraction, a side-tracking that might have lasted my whole life long. By letting myself go, I go places. — Sallie Tisdale

She's finding it hard to cope - her hopes have been dashed, the future she dreamed about has gone and she's scared about that. There's nothing in its place. She wants you back. She doesn't want to let go of everything it meant to her.
Because the world seems horribly big and empty. Because the future is a very frightening concept when you'd previously planned on sharing it with someone. Because she's a girl, she's a romantic and she fears if she lets go of her dream, she'll live a nightmare. Because she has a hope and she fears if she lets her hope go, who will she be?
The effort, the pain of clinging on is preferable to the wide-open fear of letting go. — Freya North

Blaming other people inevitably makes us blame ourselves because if we are pointing the finger at someone, practically, we are pointing it at ourselves as well. — Stephen Richards

Just because you had a bad experience in a relationship with someone, you're taking it as an excuse never to be in a relationship again. Never to trust. You're letting her control your life even way after you've said goodbye. If you've really moved on, you wouldn't be scared to have a relationship because you would have fully let her and the past go and be able to move on." He — Shaquanda Dalton

Happily Single is holding out for the best and letting go of the rest. It's saying "I will and I can" to yourself before you say "I do" to someone else. It means you're not looking for a better half because you are already whole. And ultimately, it means that someday when you do invite someone to join you on your journey, it will be because he complements your life, not because he completes it. — Mandy Hale

Blaine, the scariest part about love isn't love itself. It's letting go and plunging into the unknown. It's trusting someone with the very most sacred part of your heart. It's allowing yourself to feel something foreign and uncharted, despite how much it terrifies the hell out of you — S.L. Jennings

Assuming you are still lost in thought about when exactly you should forgive someone, well the time is NOW. — Stephen Richards

I'm grateful you entrusted me with them. But the day will come when someone will knock the sails out of you. She'll shatter every belief you had of me and you. She'll give herself completely and unconditionally; and you will too. And I'll be nothing more than a fond memory. — Senayda Pierre

The go-to is your parents. You know they are not serial killers. They want to see their grandchild, and you don't want to pay anyone. The perfect situation! The problem is, when you are not paying someone to do a favor for you, they don't really need to listen to you ... Also your mom and dad are crazy. They raised you, and you are a disaster! By letting them watch your kids, you are giving them free rein to replicate their mistakes. — Jim Gaffigan

I hated him, I loved him, I hated myself for loving him. I hated myself for letting him go, for letting him find someone else. I was furious, but the truth was nearly everything he'd said about me was true. — Kandi Steiner

If someone has offended you, insulted you, or disappointed you, let it go! If you are remembering all the ways you have been hurt or forgotten, let it go! Ask yourself, what good does it do for me to hold on to this? — Iyanla Vanzant

Sometimes the strongest thing you will ever do will be to let go of someone. It will be painful, you will suffer guilt, and you will second-guess yourself, but for your own sanity and quality of life, there will come a time where you hand them to God, with your love, and trust Him to be who and what He is. May our Lord comfort you. — Lee Goff

It was so cute and she was so shy. Someone told me that Randy Orton went up and hugged her and she wouldn't let go. It was kind of cute. — The Miz

How long do you think it takes to get over someone?
Forever. Sometimes it takes forever. — Winna Efendi

To love everyone unconditionally does not mean to give everyone your unconditional time. Sometimes, to love completely, we must never see someone again. This, too, is love. This is giving someone the freedom to exist and be happy, even if it must be without you. — Vironika Tugaleva

Never shut off pain till it eats you up completely. Ensure you find someone you can confide in and trust, share your burdens, cry if you need to by letting it all out. No one is conditioned for pain. We all need to address it and let it go, knowing we cannot change the past but we can make a brighter future out of the lessons learned. — Kemi Sogunle

There's more courage in admitting you love someone and fighting for them than letting them go because it hurts less." Suddenly, — Kandi Steiner

There are the clothes of a fat woman I do not know.
There is my comb and brush. There is an emptiness.
I am so vulnerable suddenly.
I am a wound walking out of hospital.
I am a wound they are letting go.
I leave my health behind. I leave someone
Who would adhere to me: I undo her fingers like bandages: I go.

(Three Women) — Sylvia Plath

Kitten,
Letting go of someone who owns your heart is hard.
Sometimes holding on to that person is even harder. I
know I'm not the easiest person to love, but you are.
I'ts not that I can't live without you; it's that I don't want to. There's a difference. We all make choices in life and I choose you.
My heart belongs to you. And I'm not asking for it back, even if you don't want it anymore. I'm just asking for the chance to have yours again. I promise I'll be more careful with it this time.
Love Always,
Jack — J. Sterling

Letting go of someone you loved wasn't hard. There was no word for what it was, because even if you didn't let them go they were still gone. — Lauren Kate

They say when you really love someone, you should be willing to set them free. So that is what I am doing. I will step back and you will move on. I will let you go ... Your happiness means everything to me. I will listen for your voice in the distance. I will look at the moon. I will keep you in my pocket. I will carry your smile with me everywhere, like a warm and comforting glow. — Tabitha Suzuma

Sometimes loving someone means letting them go. Every — Amy Patrick

Ending a relationship doesn't end the love that was shared. Love doesn't ever die, it just morphs. Love is eternal. Allowing love to move freely rather than try to force it to be something it's not is the only way to find peace. Gratitude is the first step to happiness and peace. Accepting someone is not what you wanted them to be doesn't make anyone "bad" or "wrong." That's love. Accepting the whole. Letting go out of love takes courage. Staying safe is of the ego. Entrapment is of the ego. And fear. And letting go simply means allowing everyone to be who they are and to live the life they came here to live. — Camille Lucy

Did someone harm you in 1962.. let go of it! Control and ride the horses of anger. — John Hagee

Three months ago, if you asked me, I would have told you that if you really loved someone, you'd let them go. But now I look at you, and I dreamed about Maggie, and I see that I've been wrong. If you really love someone, Allie, I think you have to take them back. — Jodi Picoult

Cooking professionally is a dominant act, at all times about control. Eating well, on the other hand, is about submission. It's about giving up all vestiges of control, about entrusting
your fate entirely to someone else. It's about turning off the mean, manipulative, calculating, and shrewd person inside you, and slipping heedlessly into a new experience as if it were a
warm bath. It's about shutting down the radar and letting good things happen. Let it happen to you. — Anthony Bourdain

The practice of forgiving is a sequential practice that begins with excusing someone. — Stephen Richards

As the old saying goes, sometimes loving someone means letting them go. — Ellen Hopkins

Letting go of someone who owns your heart is hard. Sometimes holding on to that person is even harder. I know I'm not the easiest person to love, but you are. — J. Sterling

We love someone, so we care. That love can morph into feeling responsible for them, then into we're accountable, then into we're to blame for their self-inflicted pain; then it's our fault if they crash and burn; then the fear causes us to hold on even tighter. Walk this in reverse until you get back to, "we love, we care". Now, love with wisdom. Step one in placing someone's life into His hands. — Lee Goff

Letting go is your hope and your power. So refuse to hold on to anything - any memory, any worry, or any fear - that is associated with sin. That means if you are holding a grudge, you've got to let go of it. Holding on to it is a sin. It's not taking a position of power; it's sin, and so it's weakness. So right now, this minute, get over it! If you think getting even with someone is your job, then you've lost your way. Who do you think you are - God? " 'Vengeance is Mine, I will repay,' says the Lord" (Heb 10:30 NKJV). Don't get even. Don't sit around plotting and planning. Get over it. If there is something you can't get over, then you've got a big weakness that is going to tear you down eventually. — Hayley DiMarco

Friendship is about more than facts. It's about knowing what someone is thinking, or knowing enough to know that you don't. But I guess it's also about not letting too much time go by without asking them questions, so you don't end up looking at them one afternoon, the sun so bright you have to squint, realizing that you hardly recognize the person they've become. — Nina LaCour

Letting go doesn't mean that you don't care about someone anymore. It's just realizing that the only person you really have control over is yourself. — Deborah Reber