90 Lost Love Quotes to Reflect, Mourn, and Move On

Losing love is never easy, it leaves behind shadows of what was once bright. It’s like a song that ends too abruptly, notes hanging unfinished in the air.

Each memory turns bittersweet, a mix of joy once vivid now tinged with the ache of absence.

The moments shared become stories recounted in solitude, and every place visited together echoes with the whispers of past laughter and whispered secrets.

Love, once lost, reshapes the contours of the heart, teaching us the depths of our own resilience.

For this occasion, we have gathered all the best long-lost love quotes that are moving, short, or inspiring.

Here are some poignant reflections on love that slipped away. Whether through whispered goodbyes or silent growth apart, each lost love has a story that marks our souls deeply.

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Short Lost Love Quotes for Instagram

1# Sometimes hearts understand each other, even in silence.

2# “I think about you. But I don’t say it anymore.”― Marguerite Duras

3# “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

4# Love is a journey that doesn’t always lead to destinations we expect.

5# “There is an ocean of silence between us… and I am drowning in it.”― Ranata Suzuki

6# “What is the opposite of two? A lonely me, a lonely you.” ― Richard Wilbur

7# What’s meant to be will end up good and what’s not won’t.

8# Loving might hurt, but it’s a lesson that teaches depth.

9# “Ever has it been that love knows not its own depth until the hour of separation.” ― Kahlil Gibran

10# “It hurts to breathe. It hurts to live. I hate her, yet I do not think I can exist without her.”― Charlotte Featherstone

11# “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile because it happened.” ― Dr. Seuss

12# “You never lose by loving. You always lose by holding back.” ― Barbara De Angelis

13# “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson

14# “No one compares to you, but there’s no you, except in my dreams tonight.” ― Lana Del Rey

15# “The hardest thing to let go of is what could’ve been.”

16# “The hottest love has the coldest end.” ― Socrates

17# “What the heart has once owned and had, it shall never lose.” ― Henry Ward Beecher

18# “When you love someone, and you’ve lost that one, then nothing really matters.” ― Agnetha Faltskog

19# “When you have your heart broken for the first time, you gain depth.” ― Sienna Miller

20# “Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost.” ― Kahlil Gibran

21# “To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose, the next best.” ― William Thackeray

22# “There is love of course. And then there’s life, its enemy.” ― Jean Anouilh

23# “All I know is, being away from you……makes it hard to breathe. I miss you so much” – Samantha Towle

24# “Love becomes logically true when lost but still sought from the same source.” ― Brian Celio

25# Stars can’t shine without darkness, and hearts can’t love without loss.

26# You can love them, forgive them, want good things for them… but still move on without them.

27# “Your sadness is a gift. Don’t reject it. Don’t rush it. Live it fully and use it as fuel to change and grow.” – Maxime Lagace

28# “I’ve lost love. I’ve tried to reclaim a lost love and didn’t know how to do it.” ― Sam Worthington

29# “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” ― Alfred Lord Tennyson

30# “To love and win is the best thing; to love and lose, the next best.” ― William Thackeray

Quotes About Moving on From Lost Love

1# “Then I said goodnight and tucked you away inside a place called Nostalgia, where you’ll always remain unspoiled, somewhere between my lungs that used to breathe ocean air and my belly that fluttered with hope.” ― Victoria Erickson

2# “An act of love that fails is just as much a part of the divine life as an act of love that succeeds, for love is measured by fullness, not by reception.” ― Harold Loukes

3# “Some of us think holding on makes us strong, but sometimes it is letting go.” ― Hermann Hesse

4# “I have loved deeply. I have lost intensely. I will never love again. I get that love by people who care for me.” ― Richard Simmons

5# “The greatest tragedy of lost love is not the pain in losing someone, but the lingering ache that remains within us.” – John Green

6# “Sometimes the love that is lost can lead us to find a deeper love within ourselves.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

7# “Lost love is like a river that once flowed strong but has now changed its course, leaving us stranded on the banks of our memories.” – Nicholas Sparks

8# “I never knew until that moment how bad it could hurt to lose something you never really had.” ― The Wonder Years

9# “Saying goodbye to close ones is always the hardest.” – Edin Dzeko

10# “Love yourself first, and everything else falls in line.” – Lucille Ball

11# “To fall in love with yourself is the first secret to happiness.” – Robert Morely

12# “Love will find a way through paths where wolves fear to prey.” – Lord Byron

13# “Sometimes it takes a relationship to end to shake us awake & help us see we are worth so much more than we’re settling for.” – Mandy Hale

14# “When you trip over love, it is easy to get up. But when you fall in love, it is impossible to stand again.” – Albert Einstein

15# “Love should be an inspiration, not an obligation.” – Zsa Zsa Gabor

16# “If letting go, if letting people and things work themselves out in the way that they needed to without your help was the most important thing, then it was also the hardest.” – Deb Caletti

17# “A loving heart is the truest wisdom.” – Charles Dickens

18# “How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you.” – Rupi Kaur

19# “To love and be loved is to feel the sun from both sides.” – David Viscott

20# “We loved with a love that was more than love.” – Edgar Allen Poe

21# “Thank God I found the GOOD in goodbye.” – Beyoncé Knowles

22# “If you are always trying to be normal, you will never know how amazing you can be.” – Dr. Maya Angelou

23# “I fell in love with you because there was mischief in your eyes.” – Michka Assayas

24# “Love is when he gives you a piece of your soul that you never knew was missing.” – Torquato Tasso

25# “If you have the ability to love, love yourself first.” – Charles Bukowski

26# “Any fool can be happy. It takes a man with real heart to make beauty out of the stuff that makes us weep.” ― Clive Barker

27# “There can’t be a perfect replacement for those we lost, whom we love so much. But there’s always a kind replacement, strong and caring enough to take us through those lonely moments.” ― Terry Mark

28# “There are no goodbyes for us. Wherever you are, you will always be in my heart.”

29# “It is better to have loved and lost than never to have lost at all.” ― Samuel Butler

30# “Walking alone is not difficult but when we have walked a mile worth a thousand years with someone then coming back alone is what is difficult.” ― Faraaz Kazi

Quotes about losing love

1# “The greatest tragedy of lost love is not the pain in losing someone, but the lingering ache that remains within us.” – John Green, The Fault in Our Stars

2# “Love is like war: easy to begin but very hard to stop.” – H.L. Mencken

3# “I should know enough about loss to realize that you never really stop missing someone. You just learn to live around the huge gaping hole of their absence.” ― Alyson Noel

4# “The only way to heal a broken heart is to keep on living.” – Nora Ephron

5# “Love is like a river that once flowed strong but has now changed its course, leaving us stranded on the banks of our memories.” – Nicholas Sparks, The Notebook

6# “The pain of lost love is like a wound that never fully heals. It leaves a scar that can be tender even years later.” – Unknown

7# “Love is like a ghost, it can haunt you long after it’s gone.” – Unknown

8# “The hardest part of losing someone is losing the person you thought they were.” – Unknown

9# “If you cannot hold me in your arms, then hold my memory in high regard. And if I cannot be in your life, then at least let me live in your heart.” – Ranata Suzuki

10# “Love is not love which alters when it alteration finds, or bends with the remover to remove. O no, it is an ever-fixed mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken.” – William Shakespeare

11# “Out of suffering have emerged the strongest souls; the most massive characters are seared with scars.” – Kahlil Gibran

12# “Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” – Alfred Lord Tennyson

13# “There are all kinds of love in this world but never the same love twice.” – F. Scott Fitzgerald

14# “Love is so short, forgetting is so long.” – Pablo Neruda

15# “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact you must give it to no one, not even an animal.” – C.S. Lewis

16# “To lose balance sometimes for love is part of living a balanced life.” – Elizabeth Gilbert

17# “Don’t grieve. Anything you lose comes round in another form.” – Rumi

18# “The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde

19# “The greatest love stories are not those in which love is only spoken, but those in which it is acted upon.” – Nicholas Sparks

20# “Parting is all we know of heaven, and all we need of hell.” – Emily Dickinson

21# “The pain of lost love may dim with time, but the memories will forever exist as a bittersweet reminder of what was once cherished.” – Lang Leav

22# “Lost love is the star that ceases to shine in your sky but never fades in your heart, guiding you through the darkest nights.” – Lang Leav

23# “In the symphony of our lives, some notes fade away while others grow stronger. Lost love is a melody that lingers, bittersweet and timeless.” – Pablo Neruda

24# “The echoes of a love lost whisper through time, a reminder that some connections, though severed, forever shape our hearts.” – Rumi

25# “The heart was made to be broken.” – Oscar Wilde

26# “When the sun has set, no candle can replace it.” ― George R.R. Martin

27# “In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straightway was lost.” ― Dante Alighieri

28# “Part of me aches at the thought of her being so close yet so untouchable.” ― Nicholas Sparks

29# “You want her, you need her, you had her, you lost her.”

30# “Missing her kept him awake more than the coffee.” – John Green

Final Thoughts

While the wounds of a lost love might never completely heal, they teach us resilience and enrich our understanding of ourselves.

Each experience of love, whether it ends in joy or heartache, molds us into who we are meant to become.

It’s important to remember that every ending paves the way for new beginnings, and with each love lost, we are potentially making room for new love to enter, bringing fresh hope and different perspectives into our lives.