Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Quotes

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 those depths.

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Death is but a transition from this life to another existence where there is no more pain and anguish. All the bitterness and disagreements will vanish, and the only thing that lives forever is love.

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.

Real love doesn't die. It's the physical body that dies. Genuine, authentic love has no expectations whatsoever; it doesn't even need the physical presence of a person. ... Even when he is dead and buried that part of you that loves the person will always live.

We think sometimes we're only drawn to the good, but we're actually drawn to the authentic. We like people who are real more than those who hide their true selves under layers of artificial niceties

We run after values that, at death, become zero.

At the end of your life, nobody asks you how many degrees you have, or how many mansions you built, or how many Rolls Royces you could afford. That's what dying patients teach you.

It is not the end of the physical body that should worry us.

Rather, our concern must be to live while we're alive - to release our inner selves from the spiritual death that comes with living behind a facade designed to conform to external definitions of who and what we are.

Death is simply a shedding of the physical body like the butterfly shedding its cocoon. It is a transition to a higher state of consciousness where you continue to perceive, to understand, to laugh, and to be able to grow.

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.

I've told my children that when I die, to release balloons in the sky to celebrate that I graduated. For me, death is a graduation.

You are not a powerless speck of dust drifting around in the wind.

..we are, each of us, like beautiful snowflakes-unique, and born for a specific reason and purpose.

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

Watching a peaceful death of a human being reminds us of a falling star;

one of a million lights in a vast sky that flares up for a brief moment only to disappear into the endless night forever.

Mourning can go on for years and years.

It doesn't end after a year, that's a false fantasy. It usually ends when people realize that they can live again, that they can concentrate their energies on their lives as a whole, and not on their hurt, and guilt and pain.

The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.

How do geese know when to fly to the sun? Who tells them the seasons? How do we, humans know when it is time to move on? As with the migrant birds, so surely with us, there is a voice within if only we would listen to it, that tells us certainly when to go forth into the unknown.

As far as service goes, it can take the form of a million things.

To do service, you don't have to be a doctor working in the slums for free, or become a social worker. Your position in life and what you do doesn't matter as much as how you do what you do.

It's only when we truly know and understand that we have a limited time on earth - and that we have no way of knowing when our time is up, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.

I believe that we are solely responsible for our choices, and we have to accept the consequences of every deed, word, and thought throughout our lifetime.

When we have passed the tests we are sent to Earth to learn, we are allowed to graduate. We are allowed to shed our body, which imprisons our souls.

Learning lessons is a little like reaching maturity.

You're not suddenly more happy, wealthy, or powerful, but you understand the world around you better, and you're at peace with yourself. Learning life's lessons is not about making your life perfect, but about seeing life as it was meant to be.

We are living in a time of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and despair. It is essential that you become aware of the light, power, and strength within each of you, and that you learn to use those inner resources in service of your own and others' growth.

For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.

Think of a lifeless forest in which a small plant pushes its head upward, out of the ruin. In our grief process, we are moving into life from death, without denying the devastation that came before.

The ultimate lesson is learning how to love and be loved unconditionally

The five stages - denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance - are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling. But they are not stops on some linear timeline in grief.

The world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles...only by a spiritual journey...by which we arrive at the ground at our feet, and learn to be at home. The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.

There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love? At these moments you can either hold on to negativity and look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving.

I once considered writing a book called I'm not OK and you're not OK, and that's OK.

When you spend your life doing what you love to do, you are nourishing your Soul. It matters not what you do, only that you love whatever you happen to do.

There is no mistaking love. You feel it in your heart. It is the common fiber of life, the flame that heats our soul, energizes our spirit, and supplies passion to our lives.

We have to ask ourselves whether medicine is to remain a humanitarian and respected profession or a new but depersonalized science in the service of prolonging life rather than diminishing human suffering.

There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden or even your bathtub.

Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.

It is important to feel the anger without judging it, without attempting to find meaning in it. It may take many forms: anger at the health-care system, at life, at your loved one for leaving. Life is unfair. Death is unfair. Anger is a natural reaction to the unfairness of loss.

It is the denial of death that is partially responsible for people living empty, purposeless lives; for when you live as if you'll live forever, it becomes too easy to postpone the things you know that you must do.

If we make our goal to live a life of compassion and unconditional love, then the world will indeed become a garden where all kinds of flowers can bloom and grow.

If you truly want to grow as a person and learn, you should realize that the universe has enrolled you in the graduate program of life, called loss.

Everything in this life has a purpose, there are no mistakes, no coincidences.

Those who have the strength and the love to sit with a dying patient in the silence that goes beyond words will know that this moment is neither frightening nor painful, but a peaceful cessation of the functioning of the body.

There are no mistakes, no coincidences. All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

Denial helps us to pace our feelings of grief. There is a grace in denial. It is nature's way of letting in only as much as we can handle.

I believe every person has a guardian spirit or angel. They assist us in the transition between life and death and they also help us pick our parents before we are born.

Beautiful people do not just happen

We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them.

I'm not okay, you're not okay, and that's okay.

We will never be enlightened unless we realize and own what our capacity, from the best of the best to the worst of the worst because then we have more empathy, more compassion, more sympathy for others who do things that are hurtful and harmful and we see, given certain situations, I'm capable of that myself. So, I'm less judgmental.

I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them.