Words have a power unlike any other. They can inspire us, comfort us, and challenge us to see the world in new ways. Especially when facing loss, the right words can offer a much-needed spark of understanding or a comforting echo of shared experience.
We’ve compiled a collection of 100 celebration of life quotes curated to offer solace, wisdom, and even a touch of humor during difficult times.
Whether you're coping with a recent loss, or simply seeking some thoughtful reflection, we hope these words from a variety of voices bring you a sense of peace and connection.
Uplifting celebration of life quotes
- “To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.”
- Oscar Wilde
- “The highest tribute to the dead is not grief but gratitude.”
- Thornton Wilder
- “No one goes on, but what we leave behind keeps us alive for someone else.”
- Adam Silvera
- “It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.”
- John Steinbeck
- "Nobody has ever measured, not even poets, how much the heart can hold."
- Zelda Fitzgerald
- “Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.”
- Eleanor Roosevelt
- "Death is not extinguishing the light; it is putting out the lamp because the dawn has come."
- Rabindranath Tagore
- "What we leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others."
- Pericles
- “Wherever a beautiful soul has been, there is a trail of beautiful memories.”
- Ronald Reagan
- "The bond that links your true family is not one of blood, but of respect and joy in each other's life. Rarely do members of one family grow up under the same roof."
- Richard Bach
- “Don't be dismayed at good-byes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetimes, is certain for those who are friends.”
- Richard Bach
- "Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."
- Marcel Proust
- “The connections we make in the course of life — maybe that’s what heaven is.”
- Fred Rogers
- "A life well lived is a long life."
- Seneca
- "What we have once enjoyed, we can never lose. All that we love deeply becomes a part of us."
- Helen Keller
- "No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away, until the clock wound up winds down, until the wine she made has finished its ferment, until the crop they planted is harvested. The span of someone’s life is only the core of their actual existence."
- Terry Pratchett
- "The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
- "You don't lose the people you love, you carry them with you in your heart."
- Mitch Albom
- “The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.”
- Nelson Henderson
- “Perhaps they are not stars, but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones pours through and shines down upon us to let us know they are happy.”
- Inuit proverb
- “We are all stories in the end, remembered by the adventures we had, the achievements we made and the people we loved. So make sure your story is a good one.”
- Nishan Panwar
- “As is a tale, so is a life: Not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.”
- Seneca
- “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”
- Irish proverb
Celebration of life quotes to help with grief
- “Grief is like the ocean; It comes on waves ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, and sometimes it is overwhelming. All we can do is learn to swim.”
- Vicki Harrison
- "Grief is the price we pay for love."
- Queen Elizabeth II
- "There is pain in this world that you can't be cheered out of. You don't need solutions. You don't need to move on from your grief. You need someone to see your grief, to acknowledge it. You need someone to hold your hands while you stand there in blinking horror, staring at the hole that was your life. Some things cannot be fixed. They can only be carried."
- Megan Devine
- "You will carry them with you. There’s no separation. Memories, feelings, love, grief…they flow through us and around us."
- J.K. Rowling
- "How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard."
- A.A. Milne
- "Tears shed for another person are not a sign of weakness. They are a sign of a caring heart."
- Laura Jackson
- "Maybe it's not about moving on at all. Maybe it's about carrying you with me."
- Mitch Albom
- “I will not say: Do not weep; for not all tears are an evil.”
- JRR Tolkien
- “Only people who are capable of loving strongly can also suffer great sorrow, but this same necessity of loving serves to counteract their grief and heals them.”
- Leo Tolstoy
- “Stop punishing yourself for being someone with a heart. You cannot protect yourself from suffering. To live is to grieve. You are not protecting yourself by shutting yourself off from the world. You are limiting yourself.”
- Leigh Bardugo
- “When one person is missing, the whole world seems empty.”
- Pat Schweibert
- "There is a sacredness in tears. They are not a mark of weakness, but of courage. Tears mean that our hearts have been touched."
- Shontelle Duncan
- "You will carry them inside you, if there is any afterlife, and if there isn't, you will carry them here in the world, but you don't get to choose. You don't get to say goodbye."
- Terry Pratchett
- "We never lose those we love, even in death. They continue to participate in every act, thought and decision we make. Their love leaves an indelible imprint in our lives."
- Leo Buscaglia
- “Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.”
- Langston Hughes
- “A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.”
- Maya Angelou
- “Lives are like rivers: eventually they go where they must. Not where we want them to.”
- Richard Russo
- “Life is a song — sing it. Life is a game — play it. Life is a challenge — meet it. Life is a dream — realize it. Life is a sacrifice — offer it. Life is love — enjoy it.”
- Sai Baba
- “Only a moment you stayed, but what an imprint your footprints have left on our hearts.”
- Dorothy Ferguson, poet
- "Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened."
- Dr. Seuss
- "Say not in grief 'he is no more' but live in thankfulness that he was."
- Hebrew proverb
- “Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.”
- Richard Puz, The Carolinian
- "We get no choice. If we love, we grieve."
- Thomas Lynch
- "Grief is just love with no place to go."
- Jamie Anderson
- “Life seems sometimes like nothing more than a series of losses, from beginning to end. That's the given. How you respond to those losses, what you make of what's left, that's the part you have to make up as you go.”
- Katharine Weber
- “Death is more universal than life; everyone dies, but not everyone lives.”
- Alan Sachs
- '“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
- “When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.”
- Cherokee proverb
- “Remember me with smiles and laughter, for that is how I will remember you all. If you can only remember me with tears, then don’t remember me at all.”
- Laura Ingalls Wilder
Religious celebration of life quotes
- "And he said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”"
- Luke 23:43
- "To live is Christ, and to die is gain."
- Philippians 1:21
- "Those who have faith in me will never die. Even though they die, they will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?"
- John 11:25-26
- "Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever."
- Psalm 23:6
- "O Allah, forgive and have mercy upon him [her], honor him [her] in his [her] dwelling place, and grant him [her] a spacious house in Paradise.”
- Islamic Funeral Prayer
- "The world is but a bridge. Pass over it, but build not your house upon it."
- Gautama Buddha
- "When a man departs from this world, he never takes anything with him of what he has gathered here. He only carries his karma."
- Guru Nanak
- "Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand."
- Isaiah 41:10
- "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no human mind has conceived the things God has prepared for those who love him."
- 1 Corinthians 2:9
- "In my Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you."
- John 14:2
- "śmierci nie ma" (There is no death)
- Pope John Paul II
- "We are but travelers passing through this world. Our true home is waiting for us."
- A.W. Tozer
- "You have been a good and faithful servant. Enter into the joy of your master."
- Matthew 25:23
- "The soul that finds its home in God can never perish."
- Meister Eckhart
Funny celebration of life quotes
- “Why is it that we rejoice at birth and grieve at a funeral? It is because we are not the person involved.”
- Mark Twain
- “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking. Number two is death. This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re better off in the casket than doing the eulogy.”
- Jerry Seinfeld
- “Always go to other people’s funerals, otherwise they won’t come to yours.”
- Yogi Berra
- “Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.”
- Isaac Asimov
- “The idea is to die young as late as possible.”
- Ashley Montagu
- “Life is stressful, dear. That’s why they say ‘rest in peace.’”
- David Mazzucchelli
- “I am ready to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.”
- Winston Churchill
- "Amazing tradition. They throw a great party for you on the one day they know you can’t come."
- Jeff Goldblum
- "I intend to live forever, or die trying."
- Groucho Marx
- “Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.”
- W. Somerset Maugham
Celebration of life quotes for Mom
- “A mother’s hug lasts long after she lets go.”
- Unknown
- “But she wasn’t around, and that’s the thing when your parents die, you feel like instead of going in to every fight with backup, you are going into every fight alone.”
- Mitch Albom
- “Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”
- C.S. Lewis
- “When death takes your mother, it steals that word forever.”
- Mitch Albom
- "To know even one life breathed easier because she lived is to know she truly succeeded while here."
- Anonymous
- “She made broken look beautiful and strong look invincible. She walked with the universe on her shoulders and made it look like a pair of wings.”
- Ariana Dancu
- “All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.”
- Abraham Lincoln
- “Love as powerful as your mother’s for you leaves its own mark. To have been loved so deeply, even though the person who loved us is gone, will give us some protection forever.”
- J.K. Rowling
- “There is something about losing a mother that is permanent and inexpressible — a wound that will never quite heal.”
- Susan Wiggs
- “A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest.”
- Irish Proverb
- "The most beautiful people we have known are those who have known defeat, known suffering, known struggle, known loss, and have found their way out of the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen."
- Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
- “Inner beauty is everything. People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in; their true beauty is revealed only if their light is from within.”
- Elizabeth Kubler Ross
- “If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my own garden forever.”
- Alfred Jennyon
Celebration of life quotes for Dad
- “A father’s love is forever imprinted on his child’s heart.”
- Jennifer Williamson
- “Your absence walks through the door every single day.”
- Helen Lyon
- “My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived and let me watch him do it.”
- Clarence Budington Kellan
- “To her, the name of father was another name for love.”
- Fanny Fern
- My father gave me the greatest gift anyone could give another person, he believed in me.”
- Jim Valvano
- “A father is the one friend upon whom we can always rely. In the hour of need, when all else fails, we remember him upon whose knees we sat when children.”
- Émile Gaboriau
- “This is the price you pay for having a great father. You get the wonder, the joy, the tender moments — and you get the tears at the end, too.”
- Harlan Coben
- “There is no expiration date on the love between a father and his child.”
- Jennifer Williamson
- “When a great man dies, for years the light he leaves behind him lies on the paths of men.”
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
- “A father is neither an anchor to hold us back, nor a sail to take us there, but a guiding light whose love shows us the way.”
- Author Unknown
- "To live in the hearts we leave behind is not to die."
- Thomas Campbell
Next steps
We hope these quotes help inspire you as you prepare for a celebration of life to honor the memory of your loved one. If you’re planning out a memorial event in the Los Angeles area, consider using Meadow.
At Meadow, we understand the weight of this moment. We offer a more compassionate and meaningful way to celebrate a life well-lived with customized memorial planning services.
Our team of caring memorial planners will partner with you during this tender time to create an occasion as remarkable as the life it honors.
With our licensed team, you can expect:
- A weight off your shoulders: Our memorial planners will take care of every detail, and they’ll be in the background at your memorial, making sure everything runs smoothly.
- The perfect location: Our planners help you find the perfect location, whether that’s an idyllic beachfront, your loved one’s favorite restaurant, or the comfort of your own home.
- Transparent pricing: Starting from $1,295 for a basic cremation, our memorial prices are transparent and easy to understand.
- The personal touch: Our memorial planners will make sure your loved one’s presence is felt throughout the occasion.
Explore our Memorial Services.
