# Sadness

Sadness is an emotional pain associated with, or characterized by, feelings of disadvantage, loss, despair, grief, helplessness, disappointment and sorrow. An individual experiencing sadness may become quiet or lethargic, and withdraw themselves from others. An example of severe sadness is depression. Crying is often an indication of sadness.

## Quotes

* Of all tales 'tis the saddest—and more sad, Because it makes us smile.
** Lord Byron, Don Juan (1818-24), Canto XIII, Stanza 9.
* If you're sad, it's a way of connecting with other people. And we - a lot of times we sort of feel embarrassed by being sad, and we go off by ourselves to hide and cry by ourselves. But, really, it's a way of re-establishing relationship.
** Pete Docter "It's All In Your Head: Director Pete Docter Gets Emotional In 'Inside Out'", Fresh Air, hosted by David Bianculli, July 3, 2015.
* When I’m sad, I seem so grotesque to myself that it makes me laugh; when I’m cheerful, I make such idiotic jokes that I feel inclined to cry.
** André Gide, Armand in The Counterfeiters, D. Bussy trans., p. 372
* Sadness of any sort is also seductive, particularly if it seems deep-rooted, even spiritual, rather than needy or pathetic—it makes people come to you.
** Robert Greene, The Art of Seduction (2001)
* The First Truth is an assertion that all manifested life is sorrow, unless man knows how to live it... the Cause of Sorrow is always desire. If a man has no desires, if he is not striving for place or power or wealth, then he is equally tranquil whether the wealth or position comes or whether it goes. He remains unruffled and serene.... Being human, he will of course wish for this or that, but always mildly and gently, so that he does not allow himself to be disturbed... the Noble Eightfold Path... can be taken at all levels. The man in the world, even the uneducated man, can take it in its lowest aspects and find a way to peace and comfort through it. And yet the highest philosopher may also take it and interpret it at his level and learn very much from it.
** C.W. Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path, (1925), Speaking about the Four Noble Truths
* How often, for example, a young man desires affection from someone who cannot give it to him, who has it not to give! From such a desire as that comes often a great deal of sadness, jealousy and much other ill-feeling. You will say that such a desire is natural; undoubtedly it is, and affection which is returned is a great source of happiness. Yet if it cannot be returned, a man should have the strength to accept the situation, and not allow sorrow to be caused by the unsatisfied desire.
** C.W. Leadbeater, in The Masters and the Path, (1925), Speaking about the Four Noble Truths
* Buddhism’s famed Four Truths are called noble because they liberate us from suffering.
** Melvin McLeod in "What Are the Four Noble Truths?" (12 March 2018)
* What is the light that can dispel this ignorance of ours and remove all sorrows? A. The knowledge of the Four Noble Truths, as the Buddha called them... How can we escape the sufferings which result from unsatisfied desires and ignorant cravings? A. By complete conquest over, and destruction of, this eager thirst for life and its pleasures, which causes sorrow.... By following the Noble Eight-fold Path which the Buddha discovered and pointed out...The man who keeps these... in mind and follows them will be free from sorrow...
** Henry Steel Olcott in The Buddhist Catechism (1903)
* I fear he will prove the weeping philosopher when he grows old, being so full of unmannerly sadness in his youth.
** Shakespeare, Portia describing one of her suitors, The Merchant of Venice, Act 1, Scene 2
* The greater part of human pain is unnecessary. It is self created as long as the unobserved mind runs your life. The pain that you create now is always some form of non acceptance, some form of unconscious resistance to what is. On the level of thought, the resistance is some form of judgment. On the emotional level, it is some form of negativity. The intensity of the pain depends on the degree of resistance to the present moment, and this in turn depends on how strongly you are identified with your mind. The mind always seeks to deny the Now and to escape from it. In other words, the more you are identified with your mind, the more you suffer. Or you may put it like this: the more you are able to honor and accept the Now, the more you are free of pain, of suffering - and free of the egoic mind. p. 26
** Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (1997)
* How can we drop negativity, as you suggest? By dropping it. How do you drop a piece of hot coal that you are holding in your hand? How do you drop some heavy and useless baggage that you are carrying? By recognizing that you don't want to suffer the pain or carry the burden anymore and then letting go of it.
** Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now (1997)
* 'Tis impious in a good man to be sad.
** Edward Young, Night Thoughts (1742-1745), Night IV, line 676.

### Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations

    Quotes reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), p. 689-90.
* Child of mortality, whence comest thou? Why is thy countenance sad, and why are thine eyes red with weeping?
** Anna Letitia Barbauld, Hymns in Prose, XIII.
* A feeling of sadness and longing, That is not akin to pain, And resembles sorrow only As the mist resembles the rain.
** Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, The Day is Done, Stanza 3.
* Yet be sad, good brothers, * * * * * Sorrow so royally in you appears, That I will deeply put the fashion on.
** William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part II (c. 1597-99), Act V, scene 2, line 49.
* We look before and after, And pine for what is not, Our sincerest laughter With some pain is fraught: Our sweetest songs are those that tell of saddest thought.
** Percy Bysshe Shelley, To a Skylark, Stanza 18.

## See also

* Depression
* Four Noble Truths
* Grief
* Melancholy
* Positive thinking
* The Power of Now
* Regret
* Remorse
* Sorrow
* Woe
Emotions Adoration ~ Affection ~ Agony ~ Amusement ~ Anger ~ Anguish ~ Anxiety ~ Apathy ~ Awe ~ Boredom ~ Calmness ~ Cheerfulness ~ Compassion ~ Contempt ~ Contentment ~ Depression ~ Desire ~ Disappointment ~ Discontent ~ Disgust ~ Ecstasy ~ Embarrassment ~ Empathy ~ Enthusiasm ~ Envy ~ Euphoria ~ Fear ~ Gratitude ~ Grief ~ Guilt ~ Happiness ~ Hatred ~ Hope ~ Hostility ~ Humiliation ~ Impatience ~ Indignation ~ Insecurity ~ Jealousy ~ Joy ~ Loneliness ~ Loss ~ Love ~ Lust ~ Malice ~ Melancholy ~ Nostalgia ~ Panic ~ Passion ~ Pity ~ Pride ~ Rage ~ Regret ~ Remorse ~ Resentment ~ Sadness ~ Shame ~ Sorrow ~ Suffering ~ Surprise ~ Sympathy ~ Wonder ~ Worry