Elisabeth Kübler-Ross quotes

Elisabeth Kübler-Ross was a Swiss-American psychiatrist and pioneer in the study of death and dying. Her influential book "On Death and Dying" introduced the five stages of grief model. She transformed the understanding of terminal illness and end-of-life care. Here are 31 of her quotes:

People are like stained-glass windows. They sparkle and shine when the sun is out, but when the darkness sets in, their true beauty is revealed only if there is a light from within. (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross)
We make progress in society only if we stop cursing and complaining about its shortcomings and have the courage to do something about them. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
It is difficult to accept death in this society because it is unfamiliar. In spite of the fact that it happens all the time, we never see it. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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 - that we will begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
There is not much sense in suffering, since drugs can be given for pain, itching, and other discomforts. The belief has long died that suffering here on earth will be rewarded in heaven. Suffering has lost its meaning. (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross)
Guilt is perhaps the most painful companion of death. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Those who have been immersed in the tragedy of massive death during wartime, and who have faced it squarely, never allowing their senses and feelings to become numbed and indifferent, have emerged from their experiences with growth and humanness greater than that achieved through almost any other means. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
Learn to get in touch with silence within yourself and know that everything in this life has a purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences; all events are blessings given to us to learn from. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. (Elisabeth Kübler-Ross)
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
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. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross
There is within each one of us a potential for goodness beyond our imagining; for giving which seeks no reward; for listening without judgment; for loving unconditionally. View quote
Elisabeth Kübler-Ross