Saddening Quotes & Sayings

There's no respect for older people at all today, and that's saddening. Look at the way crime against older people has risen! You know, there's no calling people 'Mr' or 'Mrs' now, they just call you, and it's all 'fuck off' and the likes of. — Stephen Richards

It is one of the most saddening things in life that, try as we may, we can never be certain of making people happy, whereas we can almost always be certain of making them unhappy. — Thomas Huxley

Cormorant fishing:
How stirring,
How saddening — Basho Matsuo

Communism...muat of necessity be a saddening process for anyone who has ever tasted the intellectual pleasures of the world we live in. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Paint here no draped despairs, no saddening clouds Where the soul rests, proclaims eternity. But let the wrong cry out as raw as wounds This Time forgets and never heals, far less transcends. — Stephen Spender

Self-criticism is not "love," and it is certainly not indifferent. It's a form of hatred. And when I name that, when I see it for what it is (raw and uncomfortable and saddening), when I refuse to sugar-coat self criticism, judgment, agitation, and constantly trying to improve myself, then I'm one quantum leap closer to freedom. — Danielle LaPorte

One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such people rarely read. — John Kenneth Galbraith

A picture neither saddening nor gladdening I fear; neither beautiful nor ugly. — Jean Cocteau

A life is similar to a book. Some chapters are boring,a few emotional, a handful memorable,others saddening,one or two thoughtful and many full of smiles. — Elizabeth Adeniyi

This sense of being out of time has driven thousands of people from their homes into moving-picture theaters where new universes appear before them, with emphasis on man and his major problem: a thing called, conveniently, love. The Sunday midnight shows do a thriving business, and the people go back to their homes, sick with the sickness of frustration; it is this that makes the city so interesting at night: the people emerging from the theaters, smoking cigarettes and looking desperate, wanting much, the precision, the glory, all the loveliness of life: wanting what is finest and getting nothing. It is saddening to see them, but there is mockery in the heart: one walks among them, laughing at oneself and at them, their midnight staring. — William, Saroyan

He saw the delicate blades of grass which the bodies of his comrades had fertilized; he saw the little shoots on the shell-shocked trees. He saw the smoke-puffs of shrapnel being blown about by light breezes. He saw birds making love in the wire that a short while before had been ringing with flying metal. He heard the pleasant sounds of larks up there, near the zenith of the trajectories. He smiled a little. There was something profoundly saddening about it. It all seemed so fragile and so absurd. — Humphrey Cobb

All perfect things are saddening in effect. The autumn wood robed in its scarlet clothes, The matchless tinting on the royal rose Whose velvet leaf by no least flaw is flecked. Love's supreme moment, when the soul unchecked Soars high as heaven, and its best rapture knows, These hold a deeper pathos than our woes, Since they leave nothing better to expect. — Ella Wheeler Wilcox

It is invariably saddening to look through new eyes at things upon which you have expended your own powers of adjustment. — F Scott Fitzgerald

Sometimes you'll see interviews about an actor who was asked to hit the weight room to develop his body for the character, and you hear them complaining about the egg white omelettes they had to eat and the tortures of hitting the gym twice a day - I find that to be a bit saddening, it's all a part of becoming the character and as an actor, that is your job. — James Preston Rogers

I am a sensitive person, so it is actually saddening to learn that these poverty-stricken families are most of the time mistreated or looked down upon. Help the poor, like how you would want to be helped if you were in their position. — Hillary Clinton

Philippine President Joseph Estrada said he was saddened by the conviction. It's very unfortunate and what happened is saddening, ... If he really is innocent, then the day will come that his name will be cleared. — Joseph Estrada

I know no study which is so unutterably saddening as that of the evolution of humanity, as it is set forth in the annals of history. Out of the darkness of prehistoric ages man emerges with the marks of his lowly origin strong upon him. He is a brute, only more intelligent than the other brutes, a blind prey to impulses, which as often as not led him to destruction; a victim to endless illusions, which make his mental existence a terror and a burden, and fill his physical life with barren toil and battle. — Thomas Huxley

Perhaps he finds beauty saddening
I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. — Dodie Smith I Capture The Castle

The sound of distant breakers made her heart ache with melancholy. She was in the mood when the sea has a saddening effect upon the nerves. It is only when we are very happy that we can bear to gaze merrily upon the vast and limitless expanse of water, rolling on and on with such persistent, irritating monotony to the accompaniment of our thoughts, whether grave or gay. When they are gay, the waves echo their gaiety; but when they are sad, then every breaker, as it rolls, seems to bring additional sadness and to speak to us of hopelessness and of the pettiness of all our joys. — Emmuska Orczy

I know of nothing uglier or more saddening than a machine-flailed hedge. It speaks of the disdain of nature and craft that still dominates our agriculture. — Roger Deakin

The world turns and the world spins, the tide runs in and the tide runs out, and there is nothing in the world more beautiful and more wonderful in all its evolved forms than two souls who look at each other straight on. And there is nothing more woeful and soul-saddening than when they are parted ... everything in the world rejoices in the touch, and everything in the world laments in the losing. — Gary D. Schmidt

He lived decades ago,
she lives at the moment.
A very saddening reality for her. — S G

Each new year is a surprise to us. We find that we had virtually forgotten the note of each bird, and when we hear it again, it is remembered like a dream, reminding us of a previous state of existence. How happens it that the associations it awakens are always pleasing, never saddening, reminiscences of our sanest hours. The voice of nature is always encouraging. — Henry David Thoreau

The single most frustrating and saddening aspect of human life is its shocking brevity. — Sean DeLauder

You can't evade a thing. Those who try to get around it are weak. Those who meet it gallantly are strong. So many women try to dodge life. They don't economize because it's inconvenient. They don't work because it's tiring. They don't have a child because it's painful. They don't look at the dead because it's saddening. Face them all, Laura. Face them squarely and meet them gallantly... as your grandmother did. For every one of the old experiences will be there... birth... marriage... death... disappointment... grief... little joys... little sorrows. You'll have to meet them all. It's part of the story... — Bess Streeter Aldrich

He stood staring into the wood for a minute, then said: "What is it about the English countryside - why is the beauty so much more than visual? Why does it touch one so?"
He sounded faintly sad. Perhaps he finds beauty saddening - I do myself sometimes. Once when I was quite little I asked father why this was and he explained that it was due to our knowledge of beauty's evanescence, which reminds us that we ourselves shall die. Then he said I was probably too young to understand him; but I understood perfectly. — Dodie Smith

The tears stream down my cheeks from my unblinking eyes. What makes me weep so? There is nothing saddening here. Perhaps it is liquefied brain. — Samuel Beckett

It is astounding to find that the belly of every black and evil thing is as white as snow. And it is saddening to discover how the concealed parts of angels are leporous. — John Steinbeck

There's no way to tell what will make someone break down in tears. There are some who will cry at the merest melancholy word, and there are some who need the longest, cruelest speech to even dampen one eyelash. There are those who will cry at any sad song but no sad book, and there are those who are immune to the most saddening newspaper articles but will weep for days over a terrible meal. People cry at silence or at violence, in a graveyard or a schoolyard. — Lemony Snicket

I don't understand how teens in this generation stress being in a relationship/love more than adults do about their future. She's testing him to see if he's loyal, he's testing her to see if she's after money. So, basically it's a messed up-stressed-testing generation. Love has been blown so far out of proportion I reckon. The stress surrounding the single sentence 'I love you' is saddening. Relax!!! You're young! Your teen years are supposed to be fun. You have your whole lives ahead to find the right one. Just sit back, chill and live life the way it comes. — Manasa Rao

All I hope for is one moment of rational thought and a shot at action before I'm lost to a great saddening madness, pithed at the hands of my own stumbling biology.

[Johnny Truant] — Mark Z. Danielewski

And at once he sacrificed everything to it, if it can be said we ever sacrifice anything save what we know we can never attain, or what some secret wisdom tells us it would be uncomfortable or saddening to possess. — Thornton Wilder

If anger arises in the mind in response to an outside event, it's helpful to look for either the saddening or frightening aspect of that event and then take whatever measures we can to address the sadness or the fear. Knowing that negativity or aversion is a transient energy never means to ignore it. It means to see it clearly, always, and work with it wisely [p. 85]. — Sylvia Boorstein

To happy folkAll heaviest words no more of meaning bearThan far-off bells saddening the Summer air. — William Morris