100 Celebration of Life Quotes
Saying goodbye is often difficult, and it can be hard to find the words to express how you feel about a loved one who has passed. When you don't have adequate words of your own to celebrate a life, quotes can be a personalized and uplifting choice.
Quotes chosen for a celebration of life are often different than those chosen for traditional funerals. Celebrations of life focus on finding meaning in a life well-lived, striking a more uplifting tone, and including meaningful, personal details about your loved one. Many families choose a quote from a famous author, stanza from a favorite poem or lyric from a favorite song, in addition to a selection from the Bible or other religious work. These quotes can be printed on the cover of a funeral program, engraved on mementos or used to open a eulogy or close a service.
Here are 100 quotes to consider for your loved one's celebration of life, including:
- Inspiring celebration of life quotes
- Celebration of life quotes to help with grief
- Uplifting celebration of life quotes
- Celebration of life quotes for Mom
- Celebration of life quotes for Dad
- Funny celebration of life quotes
- Religious celebration of life quotes
Inspiring celebration of life quotes
Inspiring celebration of life quotes touch on how to live life to the fullest and remind us to love each day.
People living deeply have no fear of death.
—Anais Nin
To live in hearts we leave behind is not to die.
—Thomas Campbell
No one is actually dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
—Terry Pratchett
It’s so much darker when a light goes out than it would have been if it had never shone.
—John Steinbeck
The boundaries between life and death are at best shadowy and vague. Who shall say where one ends and where the other begins?
—Edgar Allan Poe
“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
Life is for the living. Death is for the dead. Let life be like music. And death a note unsaid.
—Langston Hughes
How can the dead be truly dead when they still live in the souls of those who are left behind?
—Carson McCullers
A great soul serves everyone all the time. A great soul never dies. It brings us together again and again.
—Maya Angelou
In the end, it’s not the years in your life that count. It’s the life in your years.
—Abraham Lincoln
What you leave behind is not what is engraved in stone monuments but what is woven into the lives of others.
—Thucydides
Lives are like rivers: eventually they go where they must. Not where we want them to.
—Richard Russo
There is only one happiness in this life: to love and be loved.
—George Sand
As is a tale, so is a life. Not how long it is, but how good it is, is what matters.
—Seneca
For life and death are one, even as the river and the sea are one.
—Kahlil Gibran
The journey doesn’t end here. Death is just another path, one that we all must take.
—J.R.R. Tolkien
Life has to end. Love doesn’t.
—Mitch Albom
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal. Love leaves a memory no one can steal.
—Irish proverb
Life is eternal, and love is immortal, and death is only a horizon; and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight.
—Rossiter Worthington Raymond
Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.
—Ernest Hemingway
Let no one weep for me or celebrate my funeral with mourning; for I still live, as I pass to and fro through the mouths of men.
—Quintus Ennius
In the blink of an eye, everything can change. So forgive often and love with all your heart. You may never not have that chance again.
—Unknown
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Celebration of life quotes to help with grief
You may be struggling with how exactly to manage the deep sadness that comes with losing a loved one. And that’s okay. These quotes may help you—and family and friends—work through the sorrow.
Say not in grief that he is no more but live in thankfulness that he was.
—Hebrew proverb
Those we love never truly leave us. There are things that death cannot touch.
—Jack Thorne
Grief is the price we pay for love.
—Queen Elizabeth
If the people we love are stolen from us, the way to have them live on is to never stop loving them.
—James O’Barr
“There is a sacredness in tears. They are not the mark of weakness but of power. They speak more eloquently than 10,000 tongues. They are messengers of overwhelming grief and unspeakable love.”
—Washington Irving
Sometimes, when one person is absent, the whole world seems depopulated.
—Alphonse de Lamartine
If there ever comes a day when we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.
—A.A. Milne
If you ever lose someone dear to you, never say the words they’re gone. They’ll come back.
—Prince
Remembering is an act of resurrection, each repetition a vital layer of mourning, in memory of those we are sure to meet again.
—Nancy Cobb
To die completely, a person must not only forget but be forgotten, and he who is not forgotten is not dead.
—Samuel Butler
The darker the night, the brighter the stars. The deeper the grief, the closer to God.
—Fyodor Dostoyevsky
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 a most peculiar thing; we’re so helpless in the face of it. It’s like a window that will simply open of its own accord. The room grows cold, and we can do nothing but shiver. But it opens a little less each time, and a little less; and one day we wonder what has become of it.
—Arthur Golden
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Plan a beautiful, personal remembrance
Particular passions, milestone moments and legacies created weave together to tell a unique story. The Insider’s Guide to Funeral & Cremation Planning will walk you through inspirational ideas and the simple steps to planning a very personal celebration. Fill out the form and a planning advisor will contact you to answer your questions and provide a customized estimate for final expenses.
Uplifting celebration of life quotes
A memorial service doesn't have to be a somber occasion. For a bright spot, look to these quotes from artists, historical figures, poets and advocates.
Those we love and lose are always connected by heartstrings into infinity.
—Terri Guillemets
Like a bird singing in the rain, let grateful memories survive in time of sorrow.
—Robert Louis Stevenson
As a well-spent day brings happy sleep, so a life well-used brings happy death.
—Leonardo da Vinci
Many people will walk in and out of your life, but only true friends leave footprints in your heart.
—Eleanor Roosevelt
The connections we make in the course of life—maybe that’s what heaven is.
—Fred Rogers
I can't think of a more wonderful thanksgiving for the life I have had than that everyone should be jolly at my funeral.
—Admiral Lord Mountbatten
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
The song is ended, but the melody lingers on…
—Irving Berlin
What we once enjoyed and deeply loved we can never lose, for all that we love deeply becomes part of us.
—Helen Keller
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“How lucky am I to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.”
—A.A. Milne
Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.
—Dr. Seuss
Perhaps they are not the 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.
—Anonymous
They that love beyond the world cannot be separated by it. Death cannot kill what never dies.
—William Penn
Every life is noted and is cherished, and nothing loved is ever lost or perished.
—Madeleine L’Engle
The comfort of having a friend may be taken away but not that of having had one.
—Seneca
Wherever a beautiful soul has been, there is a trail of beautiful memories.
—Ronald Reagan
Celebration of life quotes for Mom
She packed your lunches and sewed your costumes—and she was always the first person you called with good news. Here are some quotes that may capture her sweet spirit and everlasting impression.
You are gone, but thank you for all these soft, sweet things you left behind. In my home, in my head, in my heart.
—Nikita Gill
The world changes from year to year, our lives from day to day, but the love and memory of you, shall never pass away.
—Unknown
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
“Her absence is like the sky, spread over everything.”
—C.S. Lewis
Say not in grief that she is no more, but say in thankfulness that she was. A death is not the extinguishing of a light but the putting out of the lamp because the dawn has come.
—Rabindranath Tagore
If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my own garden forever.
—Alfred Jennyon
All that I am or ever hope to be, I owe to my angel mother.
—Abraham Lincoln
Only a moment you stayed but what an imprint your footprints have left on our hearts.
—Dorothy Ferguson
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
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
A mom’s hug lasts long after she lets go.
—Unknown
Unable are the loved to die. For love is immortality.
—Emily Dickinson
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Celebration of life quotes for Dad
He was your protector, your cheerleader and a guy you could always depend on. Look to some of these quotes and ideas to perfectly describe the man you miss so much.
Unless a man undertakes more than he possibly can do, he will never do all that he can.
—Henry Drummond
A person's true wealth is the good he or she does in the world.
—Nazr Mohammed
When he shall die take him and cut him out in little stars, and he will make the face of heaven so fine that all the world will be in love with night and pay no worship to the garish sun.
—William Shakespeare
My father didn’t tell me how to live; he lived, and let me watch him do it.
—Clarence Budington Kelland
“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
Dad, your guiding hand on my shoulder will remain with me forever.
—Unknown
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.
—Unknown
That man is a success—who has lived well, laughed often and loved much; who has gained the respect of intelligent men and the love of children; who has filled his niche and accomplished his task; who leaves the world better than he found it; who has never lacked appreciation of earth’s beauty or failed to express it; who looked for the best in others and gave the best he had.
—Unknown
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Funny celebration of life quotes
Don’t be afraid to inject a little humor into the celebration of life. For some, that’s the most familiar way of dealing with a hard time.
I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.
—Willa Cather
Immortality … a fate worse than death.
—Edgar A. Shoaff
I’m always relieved when someone is delivering a eulogy and I realize that I’m listening to it.
—George Carlin
Dying is a very dull, dreary affair. And my advice to you is to have nothing whatever to do with it.
—W. Somerset Maugham
I am ready to meet my maker. Whether my maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter.
—Winston Churchill
“I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”
—Mark Twain
Life is stressful, dear. That’s why they say ‘rest in peace.
—David Mazzucchelli
The idea is to die young as late as possible.
—Ashley Montagu
Death is nature’s way of saying, ‘Your table is ready.
—Robin Williams
Life is pleasant. Death is peaceful. It’s the transition that’s troublesome.
—Isaac Asimov
Life does not cease to be funny when people die any more than it ceases to be serious when people live.
—George Bernard Shaw
Religious celebration of life quotes
These verses from the Bible and words written by famous poets and writers look to a higher power to bring peace. Here are a few favorites that are used often in more traditional memorial services.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
—Romans 6:23
For this God is our God forever and ever; He will be our guide even to the end.
—Psalm 48:14
For I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God.
—Job 19:25-26
There is nothing easy about losing a loved one no matter the circumstance. Your heart is broken and your soul weeps for the loss BUT knowing that there are people that will handle the whole process of celebrating a life with the utmost professionalism, sensitivity, and respect is absolutely priceless.
—Nadine T., Sugar Land, TX
The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want. He has me lie down in green pastures, He leads me beside the still waters. He revives my soul; He guides me on paths of righteousness for His glory. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no harm, For you are with me ... Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, And I shall abide in the house of the Lord forever.
—Psalm 23
So you have pain now; but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.
—John 16:22
It is foolish and wrong to mourn the men who died. Rather we should thank God that such men lived.
—George S. Patton Jr.
Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.
—Matthew 25:21
This is my comfort in my affliction; that your promise gives me life.
—Psalm 119:50
If we have been pleased with life, we should not be displeased with death, since it comes from the hand of the same master.
—Michelangelo
They will come back, come back again, as long as the red earth rolls. He never wasted a leaf or a tree. Do you think He would squander souls?
—Rudyard Kipling
If God hath made this world so fair; Where sin and death abound; How beautiful beyond compare; Will paradise be found!
—James Montgomery
God will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.
—Revelation 21:4
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