Lost love and heartbreak is a tough thing.
It can drag you down.
Take time to move on from. And hold you back from a brighter future for far too long.
So in this post I’d like to share the most helpful quotes on lost love and on how to move on from it and into a new chapter in your life.
And if you need more motivation then you may find these quotes on regret and this post with compassion quotes helpful.
Quotes About Lost Love
“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”
Alfred Lord Tennyson
“Love is never lost. If not reciprocated, it will flow back and soften and purify the heart.”
Washington Irving
“The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost.”
Gilbert K. Chesterton
“When you have your heart broken for the first time, you gain depth.”
Sienna Miller
“Suddenly she realized that what she was regretting was not the lost past but the lost future, not what had not been but what would never be.”
F. Scott Fitzgerald
“There are things that we never want to let go of, people we never want to leave behind. But keep in mind that letting go isn’t the end of the world, it’s the beginning of a new life.”
Unknown
“When it’s gone, you’ll know what a gift love was. You’ll suffer like this. So, go back and fight to keep it.”
Ian McEwan
“You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.”
Barbara De Angelis
“When we think we have been hurt by someone in the past, we build up defenses to protect ourselves from being hurt in the future. So the fearful past causes a fearful future and the past and future become one. We cannot love when we feel fear…. When we release the fearful past and forgive everyone, we will experience total love and oneness with all.”
Gerald G. Jampolsky
“I have loved and I have lost and I’m starting to believe; it’s okay. Sometimes what we ‘think’ is best for us, is only the beginning of what is truly ‘meant’ for us. And if I have loved, so deeply the wrong heart; I am content in knowing the greatest love I will ever experience, hasn’t even begun yet.”
Nikki Rowe
“Love never dies a natural death. It dies because we don’t know how to replenish its source. It dies of blindness and errors and betrayals. It dies of illness and wounds; it dies of weariness, of witherings, of tarnishings.”
Anais Nin
“I don’t know that love changes. People change. Circumstances change.”
Nicholas Sparks
“I don’t think, until you’ve actually lost somebody you really love, that you can go through that door that allows you to be grown-up.”
Felicity Kendal
“I think the worst feeling in the world is knowing that someone you used to talk to everyday doesn’t care about you anymore.”
Anmol Andore
“You must be strong enough to know that love will come to you when you are ready. You must be strong enough to know when to say goodbye, and know that letting go is not weak.”
Marisa Donnelly
“Sadly enough, the most painful goodbyes are the ones that are left unsaid and never explained.”
Jonathan Harnisch
“Perhaps that is where our choice lies—in determining how we will meet the inevitable end of things, and how we will greet each new beginning.”
Elana K. Arnold
“The hottest love has the coldest end.”
Socrates
“When you loved someone and had to let them go, there will always be that small part of yourself that whispers, “What was it that you wanted and why didn’t you fight for it?”
Shannon L. Alder
“Where you used to be, there is a hole in the world, which I find myself constantly walking around in the daytime, and falling in at night. I miss you like hell.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay
“To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose, the next best.”
William Thackeray
“Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.”
Kahlil Gibran
“Not all those who wander are lost.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
“Let go. Why do you cling to pain? There is nothing you can do about the wrongs of yesterday. It is not yours to judge. Why hold on to the very thing which keeps you from hope and love?”
Leo Buscaglia
Also check out this post on inner peace for more helpful tips.
Quotes About Moving on From Lost Love
“Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.”
Dr. Seuss
“People should not judge failed love affairs as failed experiences, but as part of the growth process. Something does not have to end well for it to have been one of the most valuable experiences of a lifetime.”
Ethel Person
“A broken heart is just the growing pains necessary so that you can love more completely when the real thing comes along.”
J.S.B. Morse
“If you spend your time hoping someone will suffer the consequences for what they did to your heart, then you’re allowing them to hurt you a second time in your mind.”
Shannon L. Alder
“No matter how hard the past is, you can always begin again.”
Buddha
“When two people decide to get a divorce, it isn’t a sign that they ‘don’t understand’ one another, but a sign that they have, at last, begun to.”
Helen Rowland
“Life moves forward. The old leaves wither, die and fall away, and the new growth extends forward into the light.”
Bryant McGill
“I was never one to patiently pick up broken fragments and glue them together again and tell myself that the mended whole was as good as new. What is broken is broken—and I’d rather remember it as it was at its best than mend it and see the broken places as long as I lived.”
Margaret Mitchell
“Celebrate endings—for they precede new beginnings.”
Jonathan Lockwood Huie
“Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on.”
Bob Newhart
“It happens to everyone as they grow up. You find out who you are and what you want, and then you realize that people you’ve known forever don’t see things the way you do. So you keep the wonderful memories, but find yourself moving on.”
Nicholas Sparks
“The truth is, unless you let go, unless you forgive yourself, unless you forgive the situation, unless you realize that the situation is over, you cannot move forward.”
Steve Maraboli
“There comes a day when you realize turning the page is the best feeling in the world, because you realize there’s so much more to the book than the page you were stuck on.”
Zayn Malik
“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us.”
Alexander Graham Bell
“When we go back in to the past and rake up all the troubles we’ve had, we end up reeling and staggering through life. Stability and peace of mind come by living in the moment.”
Pam W. Vredevelt
“People have a hard time letting go of their suffering. Out of a fear of the unknown, they prefer suffering that is familiar.”
Thich Nhat Hanh
“If one dream should fall and break into a thousand pieces, never be afraid to pick one of those pieces up and begin again.”
Flavia Weedn
“The most difficult aspect of moving on is accepting that the other person already did.”
Faraaz Kazi
“Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.”
Hermann Hesse
“Your past does not equal your future.”
Anthony Robbins
Want even more? Have a look at this post with quotes on overcoming adversity.