Losing friends is one of the hardest healing processes anyone can go through. It takes time.
By Sofia Stewart — Written on May 31, 2020
It’s important to realize that losing friends is a part of life’s journey, but let’s be honest, these quotes about losing friends prove that experience is one of the hardest trials to get through. Whether it was by differences, death, broken promises, manipulation, or betrayal, it’s still difficult knowing your chapter with someone has ended or come to a pause.
Deciding whether a friendship is worth its aggravation and trials can be challenging if you don’t know how to look for the red flags. How do you know you’re in a toxic friendship? Should you keep friendships even if they’re not exciting? Can you stay with friends who’ve made drastic changes in their life?
You shouldn’t feel an ounce of guilt when it comes to asking these kinds of questions to yourself.
It's important if you're feeling tension in your relationships with your friends to watch out for the warning signs of a toxic friendship.
True friendships don’t mix their relationships with business. If your friends see you as a transaction, will they really be there for you when you’re left with nothing but a favor? Make sure that you’re not using them and they’re not using you, to enforce satisfaction in the relationship.
What is a healthy relationship? It’s not two people always working out together and staying fit. If a friend is putting the other down, and keep them from reaching their goals, then they’ve failed to meet the basic expectations of a friend. If you’re friends know that you have an addiction to unhealthy habits, then it’s their job to encourage you to break it.
Toxic friends manipulate by playing with your emotions to get their way. If you’re constantly the one apologizing for everything and dealing with their silent treatment, then this isn’t a healthy friendship.
The relationship between friends comes and goes no matter how long you’ve known someone, but even if the friendship ends, your memories with that person weren’t a waste. It’s a blessing to look back at good times, knowing you’ve had the experience that with someone special in your life.
People are meant to change either drastically or slightly. You’re going to make decisions that will test their loyalty so that you’re given a chance to meet other people who will stand by your side.
It’s hard enough in life to learn to let go of friends. Whether we’ve known them all our life or for a month, losing anyone you’ve connected with can be traumatizing. Here are some of the best quotes about losing friends that you can either relate to — or will help you get through the difficult times.
1. Enjoy the memories but learn to let go of the past.
“Sweet is the memory of distant friends! Like the mellow rays of the departing sun, it falls tenderly, yet sadly, on the heart.” — Washington Irving
2. Be friends with someone’s mind.
“True friendship can afford true knowledge. It does not depend on darkness and ignorance”. —Henry David Thoreau
3. Accepting friends are gone helps us to move forward.
“Your lost friends are not dead but gone before; advanced a stage or two upon that road which you must travel in the steps they trod.” —Aristophanes
4. Friends don’t stay silent while pain inflicts on you.
“In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.” —Martin Luther King, Jr.
5. Beware of cracks in any friendships.
“Friendship is delicate as a glass, once broken it can be fixed but there will always be cracks.” —Waqar Ahmed
6. Make an opportunity to meet new people in your life.
“While we are mourning the loss of our friend, others are rejoicing to meet him behind the veil.” — John Taylor
7. Toxic friends won’t help you grow as a person.
“No person is your friend who demands your silence or denies your right to grow.” —Alice Walker
8. Forgiveness is apart of every friendship.
“Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other’s little failings.” —Jean De La Bruyere
9. Losing friends by death is hard, but it forces you to enjoy the memories.
“Death leaves a heartache no one can heal, love leaves a memory no one can steal.” —Richard Puz
10. Let fate always run its course.
“But fate ordains that dearest friends must part.” —Edward Young
11. Friendships always steal parts of hearts.
“Good God! How often are we to die before we go quite off this stage? In every friend we lose a part of ourselves, and the best part.” —Alexander Pope
12. Miles in friendships shouldn’t be a blockage.
“Can miles truly separate you from friends… If you want to be with someone you love, aren’t you already there?” —Richard Bach
13. Friends who judge aren’t friends at all.
“If two friends ask you to judge a dispute, do not accept, as you may lose a friend.” —Saint Augustine
14. Don’t let others use you as a transaction.
“Some people aren’t loyal to you. They are loyal to their needs of you. Once their needs change, so does their loyalty.” —Alvis Corea
15. A friend’s greatest give is loving another unconditionally.
“Closed eyes, heart not beating, but a living love.” —Avis Corea
16. Goodbyes are necessary for those who know best.
“Excuse me, then! you know my heart; But dearest friends, alas! must part.” —John Gay
17. The journey to success can be a lonely road.
“Due to success I started losing friends.” —Ace Hood
18. The company of friends has a lot of impacts.
“If you should die before me, ask if you can bring a friend.” —Stone Temple Pilots
19. You give apart of yourself to the people you love.
“The death of a friend is equivalent to the loss of a limb.” —German Proverb
20. If fate wanted you to be friends, then you’ll meet again.
“Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those who are friends.” —Richard Bach
21. At times your friends are your worst enemies.
“I pray to God to remove my enemies from my life, and before I know it, I started losing friends. I am just saying no one to be trusted.” — Blaze Olamiday
22. Only lovers can choose to walk away.
“Lovers have a right to betray you friends don’t.” — Judy Holliday
23. Friendships should last forever.
“A friendship that can cease has never been real.” — St. Jerome
24. The worst friends are the ones that hurt your mind.
“An insincere friend is more to be feared than a wild beast; a wild beast may wound your body, but an evil friend will wound your mind.” — Buddha
25. A friend’s worth should last a lifetime.
“No distance of place or lapse of time can lessen the friendship of those who are thoroughly persuaded of each other’s worth.” — Robert Southey
26. Goodbyes are apart of friendships.
"Don’t be dismayed at goodbyes. A farewell is necessary before you can meet again. And meeting again, after moments or lifetime, is certain for those, who are friends." ―Richard Bach
27. Leaving friends behind is a difficult decision.
“Moving on is simple, what you leave behind that makes it difficult.” ― Unknown
28. Friends are those you'll never forget.
"You meet people who forget you. You forget people you meet. But sometimes you meet those people you can’t forget. Those are your friends." ― Unknown
29. Goodbyes are for the dearest.
"Excuse me, then! you know my heart; But dearest friends, alas! must part." ― John Gay
30. It's impossible to forget someone.
"Trying to forget someone you love is like trying to remember someone you never knew." ― Unknown
31. Losing friends is an emotional loss.
"To lose a friend is the greatest of all losses." —Publilius Syrus
32. We don't know how important friends are until they're gone.
"You don't know who is important to you until you actually lose them." —Mahatma Gandhi
33. Losing family and friends is a natural occurrence.
"The sad events that occur in my life are the sad events that happen to everybody, with losing friends and family, but that is a natural occurrence, as natural as being born." — Sergio Aragones
34. When you lose friends, focus on the memories and love.
"Losing friends and spouses is an inevitable part of aging, and many people have a tendency to go quietly into semi-isolation. Instead, set your intention on expanding and deepening the love in your life." — Deepak Chopra
35. It's difficult to believe in a healing process when it comes to losing friends.
"There's something about losing friends, particularly young people, where it's not something that you get over. I don't believe there's a healing process." — Chris Cornell
36. No matter who we are, it's never easy losing friends.
"In losing a friend, she is reminded of all she has lost and all she stands to lose again. There is nothing to be done to make it any easier. We all grieve alone." — Alice Hoffman
"One night I prayed to God, I asked could he please remove my enemies from my life, and before you knew it I started losing friends." — Meek Mill
37. It's our fault if we let friends walk over over us, and we keep them around.
"If friends disappoint you over and over, that's in large part your own fault. Once someone has shown a tendency to be self-centered, you need to recognize that and take care of yourself; people aren't going to change simply because you want them to." — Oprah Winfrey
38. If we gain fame, then we tend to lose.
"A lot of things come with fame, whether it's losing friends or losing family." — Young Jeezy
39. Your friends know you best.
"It is more shameful to distrust our friends than to be deceived by them." — Confucius
40. Honor friends while they're still here.
"True friendship is like sound health; the value of it is seldom known until it is lost." — Charles Caleb Colton
41. Friends are always above fortunes.
"Losing money is a big loss, losing friends is greater than the loss, also lost all faith is lost" — Eleanor Roosevelt
42. If you know you're enemies long enough, losing them is like losing a friend.
"It's hard to be done a favor by a man you hate. It's hard to hate him so much afterwards. Losing an enemy can be worse than losing a friend, if you've had him for long enough." — Joe Abercrombie
43. Stay away from shady friends.
"False friends are like our shadow, keeping close to us while we walk in the sunshine, but leaving us the instant we cross into the shade." — Christian Nestell Bovee
44. Either way, it's strange to not know your friends.
"He had once thought it was strange to have a friend you'd never met. Now it was even stranger, losing a friend you'd never really had" — Tad Williams
45. Letting go of friends is apart of loving them.
"The way to love anything is to realize that it may be lost." — Gilbert K. Chesterton
46. Forgiving friends after they lost your trust, is a slow and long process.
"It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend." — William Blake
47. If friends can't forgive their mistakes, then they're not friends.
"Two persons cannot long be friends if they cannot forgive each other's little failings." — Jean de la Bruyere
48. There should constantly be communication between friends.
"Friendship must never be buried under the weight of misunderstanding." — Sri Chinmoy
49. Enjoy your time with friends before you get older.
“One of the difficult things about growing older is that you start losing so many friends. On the other hand, the older you get, the less time you have to wait until you see them again.” ― Ron Brackin
50. Friends offer us the best thing in life, which are memories to look back at.
“When your friends are gone and you only can look at pictures, then remember, that times and people change but that memories stay forever.”― C.M.
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Sofia Stewart is a writer who covers music, self-care, and astrology.