Losing a friend can be devastating.
It is as though we lose a beloved family member because that’s what friends are — the family we choose for ourselves.
To all those who have parted from a dear friend, here are some inspirational quotes of losing a friend to help you cope with the loss and guide you toward spiritual healing.
Many authors and famous people shared their thoughts on what it means to have friends and how their departure changes our lives.
I collected their quotes of losing a friend from various online sources and I know they’ll speak to you.
Let’s read what they’ve said!
10 Best Quotes Of Losing A Friend
1. “The loss of a friend is like that of a limb; time may heal the anguish of the wound, but the loss cannot be repaired.” — Robert Southey
2. “Man who has known the immense unhappiness of losing a friend, by what name do we call him? Here every language is silent and holds its peace in impotence.” ― Joseph Roux
3. “Breaking with old friends is one of the most painful of the changes in all that piling up of a multitude of small distasteful changes that constitutes growing older.” — John Dos Passos
4. “While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.” — John Taylor
5. “To lose a friend is the greatest of all loses.” — Publius Syrus
6. “Old friends pass away, new friends appear. It is just like the days. An old day passes, a new day arrives. The important thing is to make it meaningful a meaningful friend – or a meaningful day.” ― Dalai Lama
7. “The most beautiful discovery true friends make is that they can grow separately without growing apart.” — Elizabeth Foley
8. “Your lost friends are not dead, but gone before, advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.” ― Aristophanes
9. “When people die,’ she said softly, ‘It doesn’t necessarily mean you’re ready to give them up.” — C.A. Belmond
10. “Some people come into our lives and quickly go. Some stay for a while, leave footprints on our hearts, and we are never, ever the same.” ― Flavia Weedn
Inspirational Quotes About Loss Of A Friend
1. “You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your friends.” ― Mark Twain
2. “’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson
3. “Goodbyes are only for those who love with their eyes. Because for those who love with heart and soul, there is no such thing as separation.” ― Rumi
4. “True friends are special people who never leave your heart, even if they leave your life for a while. Even after years apart, you pick up with them right where you left off, and even if they die they’re never dead in your heart.” — Unknown
5. “How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” ― A.A. Milne
6. “You will lose someone you can’t live without, and your heart will be badly broken, and the bad news is that you never completely get over the loss of your beloved. But this is also the good news. They live forever in your broken heart that doesn’t seal back up. And you come through. It’s like having a broken leg that never heals perfectly-that still hurts when the weather gets cold, but you learn to dance with the limp.” ― Anne Lamott
7. “What we have once enjoyed deeply we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us.” — Helen Keller
8. “Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those, who are friends.” — Richard Bach
9. “We all lose friends… we lose them in death, to distance, and over time. But even though they may be lost, hope is not. The key is to keep them in your heart, and when the time is right, you can pick up the friendship right where you left off. Even the lost find their way home, when you leave the light on” — Amy Marie Waltz
10. “Tell your friend that in his death, a part of you dies and goes with him. Wherever he goes, you also go. He will not be alone.” — Jiddu Krishnamurti
Losing The Best Friend Quotes
1. “The best of friends understand that they were loved for who they were in life and that they will be remembered for their heart in death.” — Unknown
2. “Friendship extends beyond the mortal realm. I can still sense my best friend with me daily, assisting me through thick and thin. He will always be on my side.” — Unknown
3. “Friendship survives death. Memories made will never be forgotten, and they left an indelible imprint on those left behind. Everyone improved as a result of having such a fantastic friend.” — Unknown
4. “The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deeds left undone.” — Harriet Beecher Stowe
5. “The bond between friends cannot be broken by chance; no interval of time or space can destroy it. Not even death itself can part true friends.” ― John Cassian
6. “There is nothing more memorable than the sound of a friend’s laughter. May it muffle the sound of my sobs.” — Unknown
7. “It is a tragedy when a best friend dies too young, and what would have been worse is never meeting them. I am grateful to have had my friends in life and will continue to be their friend in death, honoring them in whatever I do.” — Unknown
8. “There’s a thing that keeps surprising you about stormy old friends after they die; their silence.” — Ben Becht
9. “Saying farewell isn’t something we do. Instead, I’ll remark that I’m looking forward to seeing my friend again every time I hear a phrase, hear a joke, or see an article of clothing that reminds me of them. These are the things that will bind us together even after we die.” — Unknown
10. “Losing a buddy is like losing a sister you never had. A catastrophic event that will alter your life for the rest of your life.” — Unknown
Sad Quotes About Losing A Friend
1. “Only in the agony of parting do we look into the depths of love.” ― George Eliot
2. “The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected.” ― Nicholas Sparks
3. “When a close friend unexpectedly leaves us, a piece of our heart is forever broken.” — Chris Lumpkin
4. “Some birds are not meant to be caged, that’s all. Their feathers are too bright, their songs too sweet and wild. So you let them go, or when you open the cage to feed them they somehow fly out past you. And the part of you that knows it was wrong to imprison them in the first place rejoices, but still, the place where you live is that much more drab and empty for their departure.” ― Stephen King
5. “The two hardest things to say in life are hello for the first time and goodbye for the last.” ― Moira Rogers
6. “Life without a friend is like death without a witness.” — John Ray
7. “True regret is knowing you missed your only opportunity to be simply a good friend to someone that was exactly like you.” — Shannon L. Alder
8. “Friends fill time in our lives that will be vacant when they die.” ― Helen Fitzgerald
9. “The reality is that you will grieve forever. You will not ‘get over’ the loss of a loved one; you will learn to live with it. You will heal and you will rebuild yourself around the loss you have suffered. You will be whole again but you will never be the same. Nor should you be the same nor would you want to.” — Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
10. “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ― Khalil Gibran
Short Quotes Of Losing A Friend
1. “The comfort of having a friend may be taken away, but not that of having had one.” ― Seneca
2. “I love you every day. And now I will miss you every day.” ― Mitch Albom
3. “It hurt because it mattered.” ― John Green
4. “It’s difficult to smile through the pain and walk the rest of the route of friendship alone.” — Unknown
5. “I don’t think of all the misery, but of all the beauty that remains.” — Anne Frank
6. “But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.” — Edward Young
7. “Maturity is when you realize being apart and still being best friends can be possible.” — Unknown
8. “Friends are like diamonds, precious and rare. I lost one last year; he was true blue.” — Unknown
9. “We can’t feel the loss of a friend until they are apart from us.” — Debolina
10. “There are no words in any language to describe a man who has lost his friends.” — Unknown
Death Of A Friend Quotes
1. “Every deceased friend is a magnet drawing us into another world.” ― Eliza Cook
2. “Painful though parting be, I bow to you as I see you off to distant clouds.” — Emperor Saga
3. “This passion, and the death of a dear friend, would go near to make a man look sad.” — William Shakespeare
4. “On the death of a friend, we should consider that the fates through confidence have devolved on us the task of a double living, that we have henceforth to fulfill the promise of our friend’s life also, in our own, to the world.” ― Henry David Thoreau
5. “You cannot stop loving your friend because he’s dead, especially if he was better than anyone alive, you know?” ― J.D. Salinger
6. “Even the best of friends cannot attend each other’s funeral.” ― Kehlog Albran
7. “Death is a challenge. It tells us not to waste time… It tells us to tell each other right now that we love each other.” — Leo Buscaglia
8. “Death is a brutal and chilly companion in the loss of a friendship. Warmth can be found in happy memories, so curl up with them anytime you need to.” — Unknown
9. “He who has gone, so we but cherish his memory, abides with us, more potent, nay, more present than the living man.” ― Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
10. “Not even death itself can part true friends.” — St. John Cassian
Wrapping It Up
Letting go of someone we love is extremely difficult.
I hope this collection of touching quotes of losing a friend provided you with at least some relief in knowing that many people have gone through a similar experience.
Give yourself time to heal, but know that people come and go and we must accept the fact that we’re going to lose them at some point in our lives, that’s the bitter truth of life.
The earlier we accept it, the more peaceful our lives will be.
Read next: 220 Best Gone Too Soon Rest In Peace Quotes For Loved Ones
