95 phrases of melancholy to understand this feeling
Take a look at the phrases of melancholy that artists and thinkers have bequeathed to us is a good way to understand the depth of this feeling. Among those that we will see below are those of such important people as Silvio Rodríguez, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Anatole France or Charles Baudelaire.
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The best phrases about melancholy
Melancholy appears in our lives characterized by a despondency and feeling of sadness based on the feeling that nothing satisfies us.
We can find this feeling embodied in different representations of art, and for this reason there have been many plastic artists, musicians and writers have coined phrases about melancholy, which help us understand it.
In this article we will see a compilation of the thoughts, expressions and phrases of melancholy, mostly they have been created by artists and thinkers, who express in a romantic way feelings of loss, longing and emptiness.
1. Melancholy is a sadness, a desire without any pain, similar to sadness as mist resembles rain (Henry Wadsworth Longfellow)
The American writer adds emotion to melancholy and describes it in fluent language.
2. In the shadow, far from the light of day, melancholy sighs on the sad bed, pain at her side, and migraine in her head (Alexander Pope)
Pope personifies melancholy and attributes humor to it.
3. Melancholy: romantic way to be sad (Mario Quintana)
Phrase with an ironic background of this Brazilian poet.
4. Melancholy is a way, therefore, of having; It is the way of having not having, of possessing things by the throbbing of time, by their temporal envelope. Something like a possession of their essence, since we have what we lack from them, that is, what they strictly are (María Zambrano)
In this sentence, this Spanish philosopher links melancholy to a way of being, which is real as a consequence of the lack of something, a void.
5. I am very sad and I feel more miserable than I can say, and I do not know how far I have come... I don't know what to do or think, but I really want to leave this place... I feel so melancholy (Vincent Van Gogh)
Melancholy was recurrent in this artistic French plastic; it influenced her creative process and was associated with strong emotional problems until the last days of her life.
6. Melancholy: strange ailment of the soul that pierces the body; sweet and sour taste. A poet gave him a voracious and painfully tender beak. Another poet called her breath rose and loneliness damsel. For the unsuspecting subject, melancholy can be -in short it sounds that way and causes various confusions- a tempting sweet. Eating in large proportions can cause serious disturbances in memories and unbalance the diet of life each day. It is unlikely that a feeling-thinking animal can exist without having tasted some melancholy at some time (Rosa Elvira Peláez)
In this phrase the melancholic is reaffirmed as an accompanying element in the poetic work.
7. Melancholy is a state of mind located between the navel and the tear (Juan Echanove)
This actor's phrase talks about a transit that originates in the organic, the visceral, to the expression of emotion through crying.
8. I believe that melancholy is the state of madness in the art. Of revelation and inspiration. It is Hamlet with the skull in his hand (Arturo Duclos)
Great way to identify it through the various creative spaces.
9. There is no melancholy without memory and no memory without melancholy (Will Rogers)
This phrase tells us about nostalgia for memories.
- You may be interested in: "How do emotions affect our memories? Gordon Bower's theory"
10. In the despair and melancholy of your memory, soria, my heart is filled (Antonio Machado)
Machado's phrase that brings us closer to the memories of important passages of his life in Soria.
- Related article: "70 phrases by Antonio Machado: a unique philosophy of life"
11. Only with melancholy can I fill universes and with desire (Homero Cerecedo)
Attempt to describe the depth of the melancholic state.
12. He had understood that the nostalgia for books was nothing compared to the nostalgia that people could arouse. The books told you about that feeling, about love, and it was wonderful to listen to them, but they could not replace what they talked about (Cornelia Funke)
A reflection on what happens when we enter the experience of a particular state or situation that we yearn for despite not having experienced it firsthand.
13. Nostalgia is a sad thing, but also a little happy (Milena Agus)
This phrase integrates a polarized aspect that is usually had about melancholy.
14. How much melancholy, how much loneliness did he hide behind that apparent joy of living? (Andrea Camilleri)
Some people live installed in this feeling.
15. Writing about melancholy would only make sense to those who are saturated by melancholy or if the writing came from melancholy. I try to speak to you of an overwhelming sadness, of an intransmissible pain that absorbs us sometimes, and often, lastingly, to the point of making us lose the taste for every word, for every act, the very taste for life. (Julia Kristeva)
About what happens when melancholy no longer represents an element that accompanies or stimulates the creative process, but instead kidnaps the individual, paralyzing.
16. My only star has died and my lute bears the black sun of melancholy (Gérard de Nerval)
This phrase exposes melancholy as a representation, as something symbolic.
17. Melancholy is the happiness of being sad (Victor Hugo)
This phrase by Victor Hugo, regarding melancholy, places it as an experiential expression that accompanies sadness.
- Related article: "The 6 differences between sadness and depression"
18. A single being is missing and everything is depopulated (Alphonse de Lamartine)
One of the most inspiring melancholy phrases.
19. Melancholy is a memory that is ignored. (Gustave Flaubert)
A feeling closely related to memory.
20. Dulce laughs at him, Dulce spies on her, the beautiful melancholy (José María Eguren)
This feeling was always present in this Peruvian writer.
21. Although chronic melancholy is difficult to cure, it can often be alleviated even when it is intense and violent. It is necessary, then, not to despair and to have a lot of perseverance (... ). I believe that healing remedies, methods and systems can be reduced to three classes: diet or nutrition, therapeutic drugs and surgery (Robert Burton)
Burton was very interested in the study of melancholy.
22. It seems that I will have to get used to living with these intermittent attacks of melancholy and sadness. It's like living with an old gunshot wound, which hurts when it's wet. Perhaps I have a few reasons for regret. But it shouldn't be. Life can be a party or a wake. One is the one who decides. That's why grief is shit in my life. And I scare her. This is how I am always: scaring away the anguish, the sorrow and all that... (Pedro Juan Gutiérrez)
To live with melancholy, you have to recognize it, describe it, know its existence in order to know how to deal with it.
23. Let it be very clear: the soul, as they say, is, it seems, not crystalline but swampy. The reasons that induce her, in this block, to let herself be carried away, as they are called, to play and exaltation, in the next one, with the same arbitrariness, and in a no less unpredictable way, plunge her, to use the expression once more, into an intense melancholia. In any case, it seems, right? (Juan Jose Saer)
In this sentence, the Argentine writer, in a certain way, blames this emotional state for human sorrows.
24. Do I have to say this to you who have had to bear the weight of seeing me go from sadness to crazy extravagance so many times, from sweet melancholy to depraved passion? (Ugo Foscolo)
In this sentence, melancholy is positioned as a passive expression of sadness.
25. Faced with maternal inconsistencies, Charlotte is docile. Soothe your melancholy. Is this how one becomes an artist? Getting used to the madness of others? (David Fonkinos)
Once again the melancholy present in the creative process.
- You may be interested in: "The psychology of creativity and creative thinking"
26. My melancholy is the most faithful lover I have ever known (David Lodge)
For Lodge, this emotion represents permanence.
27. You must cry over your lost pains so that, little by little, they can leave you, and you can be free to live fully in the new place without melancholy or nostalgia (Henri Nouwen)
In this sentence, it is warned that to get rid of melancholy we must recognize it from the expression of an emotion inviting us to close the door on past situations.
28. The personality of his anxieties was gone; they had widened and dilated, they had lost their own essence, they had come out of himself in a certain way to combined with that unspeakable melancholy exhaled by drowsy landscapes under the heavy repose of afternoons (Joris-Karl huysmans)
Locating melancholy in the environment.
29. He was seized by melancholy, a feeling that rain and darkness always caused him (Kate Atkinson)
Analogy based on crying and loneliness.
30. It was a passion for the gaze, and in his gaze were the eyes before time; His father says that time is melancholy, and when it stops we call it eternity (San Juan De La Cruz)
In this phrase, he connects to melancholy as something environmental that, when lived, makes everything stop.
31. Melancholy is nothing more than an unconscious memory (Gustave Flaubert)
Once again we mention the space of the ignored memory that opens the way to melancholy.
32. I don't want sadness and melancholy in my house (Saint Teresa De Jesús)
Simple prayer used as a device against melancholy.
33. Reading a book, one day, suddenly, I found an example of melancholy: A man who was silent and smiled, dying of thirst next to a fountain (José Angel Buesa)
A description close enough to despair and a blindness caused by melancholy despondency.
34. And in this hesitation of breath and agony, I carry full of sorrows what I can barely bear. Do not you hear the drops of my melancholy? (Ruben Dario)
A very Rubén Darío-style way of approaching melancholy.
35. Melancholy, stop drying up my life and bare your woman's lip! (Cesar Vallejo)
This phrase from Vallejo about melancholy captures his personality and irony.
36. Melancholy is sadness that has acquired lightness (Italo Calvino)
For Calvino this emotion is a lighter form of sadness.
37. Every man regards his human condition with a certain air of melancholy (Ralph Waldo Emerson)
According to this statement, melancholy is inherent to being human.
38. Oh melancholy, happy lover, your pleasure always takes me away (Silvio Rodríguez)
This singer, like a poem, rescues the way in which he finds comfort in a certain way in melancholy.
39. Under the great skies plush with shadows or golden with suns, wrapped in the pale and torrential cloak of my melancholy, with an astral indifference I watch the weather go by... (Delmira Agustini)
Beautiful allegory.
40. All memory is melancholic, and all hope is joyful (Novalis)
Memory and melancholy undoubtedly go hand in hand.
41. Many times people cry because they find things too beautiful. What makes them cry is not the desire to possess them, but that deep melancholy that we feel for everything that is not, for everything that does not reach its fullness. It is the sadness of the dry stream, that little path that twists without water... Of the tunnel under construction and never finished, of the pretty faces with stained teeth... It is the sadness of everything that is not complete (Elena Poniatowska)
What is longed for is also part of oneself.
42. All changes, even the most desired, have their melancholy; because we leave behind a part of ourselves; we must die in one life to enter another (Anatole France)
The accompanying melancholy of a process of personal growth.
43. A comfortable old age is the reward for a youth well spent. Instead of bringing us prospects of sadness and melancholy, it will bring us hope of eternal youth in a better world (Maurice Chevalier)
In this phrase, melancholy is seen as a characteristic of an age.
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44. Melancholy is as seductive as ecstasy (Mason Cooley)
In certain cases melancholy can be equally addictive.
45. If there were hell on earth, it would be found in the heart of a melancholy man (Robert Burton)
This phrase contains the depth of the melancholic state.
46. All changes are more or less tinged with melancholy because what we leave behind is part of ourselves (Amelia Barr)
Once again this feeling accompanying the processes that are concluding.
47. Great men are always of an originally melancholic nature (Aristotle)
For Aristotle the great thinkers have been involved in melancholy.
48. Soulless people have no need for melancholy (Vladimir Odoevsky)
Melancholy as an essential element.
49. I can hardly conceive of a type of beauty in which there is no melancholy (Charles Baudelaire)
Melancholy is usually sweet to artists through the sensitivity it grants.
50. What some people interpret as melancholy is actually serenity (David Guterson)
Another way to appreciate this state of mind.
51. Melancholy is the sadness that has been taken from the light (Italo Calvino)
Italo Calvino exposes melancholy as part of sadness.
52. At first, the company of fools can make us smile, but in the end we always feel melancholy (Oliver Goldsmith)
The melancholy present in the companies that make us feel alone.
53. Melancholy and sadness are the beginning of doubt. Doubt is the beginning of despair. Despair is the beginning of different degrees of evil (Comte de Lautreamont)
In this sentence they locate melancholy as part of a process towards evil.
54. It is a melancholy truth that even great men have their poor relationships (Charles Dickens)
This phrase about a melancholy describes it as a sad hope.
56. If I were immersed in constant melancholy, I would not be who I am (Elie Wiesel)
Reflection that indicates that melancholy sometimes takes away our identity.
57. When you feel overwhelmed by melancholy, it is best to go out and do something kind for someone (Keble)
This phrase proposes to abolish melancholy with a considerate gesture.
58. Melancholy should be averted by all means except drink (Samuel Johnson)
A phrase that invites you to reflect on emotional management.
59. There is no such thing as happiness, only minor shades of melancholy (Robert Burton)
Contrasts are part of life and our happiness.
60. Ask yourself if you are happy and you will cease to be happy (John Stuart Mill)
This phrase proposes a reflection, an attitude that sometimes tends to be typical of melancholy.
61. Don't make best friends with a melancholic soul. They always carry a heavy load and you must carry half (Francois Fenelon)
A piece of advice to ponder about our relationship with the past.
62. I believe that every human being has a certain level of melancholy in life and in general (Sandra Bullock)
This phrase normalizes melancholy and brings it to everyday life.
63. There is a melancholy that is born of greatness (Nicolas Chamfort)
A hopeful prospect.
64. You have no harmony when everyone sings the same note (Doug Floyd)
This phrase describes the perspective of the melancholic.
65. The melancholic has the face of God when he looks at us (Pisabarro)
Interesting analogy with respect to the melancholic.
66. Only after one has experienced the ups and downs, obligations and commitments of living with a partner, can one truly know the joy of living alone (Alexis Padfield)
On the nostalgia of what was never lived.
67. The loneliest place on earth? Living with a man you no longer love (Sally Brampton)
In those companies that give us loneliness appears this kind of sadness.
68. If you don't wear your smile you're like a man with a million dollars in the bank who can't spend it (Les Giblin)
When melancholy does not allow you to enjoy certain pleasures.
69. Laughter is the closest thing to the grace of God (Karl Barth)
In melancholy we miss rewarding situations.
70. Melancholy has followed me like a black beast all my life (John Cusack)
The actor's phrase describes his experience of melancholy.
71. Discard sadness and melancholy. Life is kind, it has few days and only now we have to enjoy it (Federico García Lorca)
Reaffirmation of the joy that gives hope.
72. Tango that comes from afar to caress my ears like a dear memory with melancholic hints (Enrique Cadícamo)
Music also stimulates the management of sadness.
73. Autumn is a melancholic and graceful wanderer who admirably prepares the solemn adagio of winter (Xavier Weel)
A poetic way of presenting melancholy.
74. Sadness is one of the vibrations that prove that we are alive. (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry)
Some sorrows are truly necessary to appreciate the joys.
75. The present does not exist, it is a point between illusion and longing. (Lorenzo Villalonga)
Some people live more in the past than in the present, even if it is painful.
76. Some details were erased, but the longing persisted. (Gustave Flaubert)
In Flaubert's novels we find truly detailed descriptions of the feelings of the characters.
77. Melancholy sees the worst of things. (Christian Nestell Bovee)
Melancholy can be a big obstacle if we want to achieve happiness in life.
78. I live at number 7, Calle Melancolia. (Joaquin Sabina)
One of the most remembered verses of this great Spanish singer-songwriter.
79. I fondly remember the girl I was, knowing that I did the best I could with the knowledge I had at the time. (LouiseL. There is)
Most melancholic feelings are awakened by childhood memories.
80. Melancholy, like sadness, is a feeling that stains. Joy seems to me the gift where we are. (Antonio Gala)
Melancholy leaves a negative imprint on our psyche.
81. Do not cry because it's over, smile because it happened. (Dr Seuss)
A truly positive and hopeful piece of advice.
82. First, he accepts the sadness. Realize that without losing, winning is not that great. (Alyssa Milano)
Life needs its sad part, since without it we do not value when we are happy.
83. He had broken her heart to infuse her with the poison of longing. (Guillaume Musso)
Some love breakups generate great melancholy.
84. Sadness always occupies the interior of man's joys. (Chateaubriand)
That dark side that we all have also has its function in life.
85. It was not my day. Neither my week, and my month and my year. Not my life, damn it! (Charles Bukowski)
Bukowski's work is full of melancholic phrases.
86. If you want to stop feeling melancholy, get up from the sofa, go out and start to see all the beautiful things that life offers you.
A hymn to life and proactivity.
87. On a melancholic hill there is a plastic tree. (Gorillaz)
Gorillaz's lyrics transport us to magical worlds where melancholy and depression also abound.
88. I'd rather have a fool to make me happy than experience to make me sad.
(William Shakespeare)
Knowledge and formality can make us melancholy at times.
89. Sadness is almost never anything other than a form of fatigue. (Andre Gide)
Two closely related concepts that can explain a lot about what we feel sometimes.
90. For love, I don't want more life than his life, melancholy. (Camilo Sesto)
The song "Melancolía" has gone down in the annals of history and in the collective imagination of Hispanic popular culture.
91. Melancholy is no longer what it used to be.
A truly humorous phrase that can make us reflect on melancholy.
92. The walls we build around ourselves to keep sadness out also keep joy out.
Sometimes isolation only generates more sadness and melancholy.
93. Melancholy is not sadness, but remembering happy days.
A very valid description of what melancholy really means, and that puts the accent on longing.
94. Because we can also long for our mistakes. (Ernesto Sabato)
As much as we have been wrong in the past, it is a period that we sometimes like to remember.
95. Listen to me. If you hear the past speaking to you, feel it pull at your back and run its fingers along your spine, the best thing you can do, the only thing, is to run. (Lauren Oliver)
A phrase that encourages us to move forward and look to the future.