Farewell Quotes to Make a Touching Goodbye

Couple Hugging by Train

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Saying farewell isn't easy. While change is a part of life, partings can bring you to tears. How can you make a good farewell, and what wise quotes might you use?

A Farewell Does Not Mark the End of Relationships

When you bid farewell to a friend who is moving away, you don't have to feel as if your world is over. On the contrary, you can now explore your friendship in a new dimension. You have the opportunity to write long emails, filled with details of your daily life. You can wish each other "Happy birthday" through cards, presents, or even a surprise visit. When you meet long-distance friends, you experience such jubilation, that distance seems frivolous. Your long distant friend can be a reliable sounding board, who understands you well enough to help you out. Absence also makes the heart grow fonder. You will find that distant friends have more patience and fondness for you.

When Farewells Bring an End to a Relationship

Sometimes, farewells are not pleasant. When you fall out with your best friend, you may not part on friendly terms. The bitterness of the betrayal, the hurt of losing a loved one, and the sadness, engulfs you. You may feel disoriented and temporarily lose interest in many of your daily interactions with people.

How to End a Relationship Without Hurting Yourself or Others

Even though you may feel hurt or angry, it is best to part on a friendly note. There is no point shouldering the baggage of guilt and anger. If things have come to a head, and you know that reconciliation is impossible, end the relationship without bearing malice. Express your sadness, though not accusingly. Speak kindly, and part with a handshake. You never know how life takes a turn, and you are forced to seek the help of your estranged friend. If this happens, let the parting words of farewell be nice enough for your friend to oblige you.

After Saying Farewell, Open Your Heart to New Friendships

While a farewell may end one relationship, it opens the door to new ones. There is a silver lining to every gray cloud. Each broken relationship makes you stronger and wiser. You learn to deal with pain and heartbreak. You also learn to not take things too seriously. Friendships that sustain despite the distance, continue to grow stronger over the years.

Bid Adieu to Dear Ones with Kind Words of Farewell

If you find yourself unable to say farewell, use these farewell quotes to bid your dear ones goodbye. Remind your loved ones of the precious time you shared, and how you miss them. Shower your love with sweet words. Don't let your angst make your loved ones feel guilty about moving away. As Richard Bach rightly pointed out, "If you love something, set it free; if it comes back it's yours, if it doesn't, it never was."

Farewell Quotes

William Shenstone: "So sweetly she bade me adieu, I thought that she bade me return."
Francois de la Rochefoucauld: "Absence diminishes little passions and increases great ones, as the wind extinguishes candles and fans a fire."
Alan Alda: "The best things said come last. People will talk for hours saying nothing much and then linger at the door with words that come with a rush from the heart."
Lazurus Long: "Great is the art of beginning, but greater is the art of ending."
Jean Paul Richter: "Never part without loving words to think of during your absence. It may be that you will not meet again in this life."
Alfred De Musset: "The return makes one love the farewell."
Henry Louis Mencken: "When I mount the scaffold, at last, these will be my farewell words to the sheriff: Say what you will against me when I am gone but don't forget to add, in common justice, that I was never converted to anything."
William Shakespeare: "Farewell! God knows when we shall meet again."
Francis Thompson: "She went her unremembering way, / She went and left in me / The pang of all the partings gone, / And partings yet to be."
Robert Pollok: "That bitter word, which closed all earthly friendships and finished every feast of love farewell!"
Lord Byron: "Farewell! A word that must be, and hath been - A sound which makes us linger; - yet - farewell!"
Richard Bach: "Don’t be dismayed by goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again after moments or lifetimes is certain for those who are friends."
Anna Brownell Jameson: "As the presence of those we love is as a double life, so absence, in its anxious longing and sense of vacancy, is as a foretaste of death."
A. A. Milne: "Promise me you'll never forget me because if I thought you would I'd never leave."
Nicholas Sparks: "The reason it hurts so much to separate is because our souls are connected. Maybe they always have been and will be. Maybe we've lived a thousand lives before this one and in each of them, we've found each other. And maybe each time, we've been forced apart for the same reasons. That means that this goodbye is both a goodbye for the past ten thousand years and a prelude to what will come."
Jean Paul Richter: "Man's feelings are always purest and most glowing in the hour of meeting and of farewell."
Jimi Hendrix: "The story of life is quicker than the blink of an eye, the story of love is hello, goodbye."
Irish Blessing: "May the road rise up to meet you, may the wind be ever at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face and the rain falls softly on your fields. And until we meet again, may God hold you in the hollow of his hand."
Lord Byron: "Let's not unman each other - part at once; All farewells should be sudden, when forever, Else they make an eternity of moments, And clog the last sad sands of life with tears."
John Dryden: "Love reckons hours for months, and days for years and every little absence is an age."
Henry Fielding: "Distance of time and place generally cure what they seem to aggravate; and taking leave of our friends resembles taking leave of the world, of which it has been said, that it is not death, but dying, which is terrible."
William Shakespeare: "Farewell, my sister, fare thee well. / The elements be kind to thee and make / Thy spirits all of comfort: fare thee well."
Charles M. Schulz: "Why can't we get all the people together in the world that we really like and then just stay together? I guess that wouldn't work. Someone would leave. Someone always leaves. Then we would have to say good-bye. I hate good-byes. I know what I need. I need more hellos."
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Khurana, Simran. "Farewell Quotes to Make a Touching Goodbye." ThoughtCo, Apr. 5, 2023, thoughtco.com/farewell-quotes-to-make-touching-goodbye-2831902. Khurana, Simran. (2023, April 5). Farewell Quotes to Make a Touching Goodbye. Retrieved from https://www.thoughtco.com/farewell-quotes-to-make-touching-goodbye-2831902 Khurana, Simran. "Farewell Quotes to Make a Touching Goodbye." ThoughtCo. https://www.thoughtco.com/farewell-quotes-to-make-touching-goodbye-2831902 (accessed March 29, 2024).