When composing a eulogy for a loved one, the most difficult part can be finding an apt starting point.
Fortunately, many creative minds – authors, poets, musicians, and world leaders – have wrestled with life and death and have emerged with concise, insightful, and stirring funeral quotes to give us guidance.
Here are some of the best and most useful eulogy and funeral quotes, presented with lovely imagery and elegant typography for your inspiration.
20 Funeral Quotes for a Eulogy
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
– Dr. Suess
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
– Abraham Lincoln
Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.
– Alan Sachs
Perhaps they are not stars but rather openings in heaven where the love of our lost ones shines down to let us know they are happy.
Urns Made in the USA
– Eskimo legend
The passing of the years awakens in our hearts the cry for permanence.
– F. B. Meyer
Grief is the price we pay for love.
– Queen Elizabeth II
Just living is not enough… one must have sunshine, freedom, and a little flower.
– Hans Christian Andersen
We know you’d be with us today if heaven wasn’t so far away.
– Traditional / Anonymous
What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.
– Helen Keller
If winter comes, can spring be far behind?
– Percy Bysshe Shelley
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I fall asleep in the full and certain hope that my slumber shall not be broken; and that, though I be all-forgetting, yet I shall not be all-forgotten, but continue that life in the thoughts and deeds of those I have loved.
– Samuel Butler
Say not ‘Good-night’ but in some brighter clime, bid me ‘Good-morning.’
– Anna Laetitia Barbauld
When words are most empty, tears are most apt.
– Max Lucado
The grave is but a covered bridge, leading from light to light, through a brief darkness.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
(alternate version here)
The life of the dead is placed in the memory of the living.
– Cicero
The song is ended but the melody lingers on…
– Irving Berlin
How strange this fear of death! We are never frightened at a sunset.
– George MacDonald
When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left, and could say, ‘I used everything you gave me.’
– Erma Bombeck
When you are born, you cry, and the world rejoices. When you die, you rejoice, and the world cries.
– Native American proverb
To live is Christ and to die is gain.
– Philippians 1:21
Looking for more comforting and inspirational Bible verses? See here.
Read Next: Inspirational Quotes About the Death of a Loved One
What an amazing and excellent collections, thanks for sharing 🙂
Absolutely stunning pictures . amazing
Thank you for the perfectly worded sentiment
Thank you from the bottom of my heart for sharing these Eulogy writing lessons and the wonderful quotes. Just reading some of them and seeing the beautiful artwork along with them eased my pain and, helped me write what was truly important.
Lost my nephew aged 22 on Saturday afternoon,a lot of the verses gave me comfort,thankyou