Elisabeth Kubler-Ross quotes

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a pioneering Swiss-American psychiatrist and author renowned for her groundbreaking work on the five stages of grief. Born in 1926, she dedicated her life to studying death, dying, and the psychological impact of loss. Kubler-Ross revolutionized the field with her empathetic approach to terminally ill patients, advocating for compassionate care during their final days. Her influential book "On Death and Dying" solidified her legacy and made her a prominent figure in thanatology. With over 300 publications and numerous awards, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross continues to inspire generations of psychologists, doctors, and caregivers worldwide. Learn more about her invaluable contributions to end-of-life care and bereavement support, and how her work continues to shape our understanding of human emotions.

The opinion which other people have of you is their problem, not yours.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The more you learn, the harder the lessons get.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

However healthy you think you are, remember that vegetarians die too.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We cannot look at the sun all the time, we cannot face death all the time.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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 the depths. These persons have an appreciation, a sensitivity, and an understanding of life that fills them with compassion, gentleness, and a deep loving concern. Beautiful people do not just happen.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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 Kubler-Ross

My patients taught me not how to die, but how to live.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

It is very important that you only do what you love to do. you may be poor, you may go hungry, you may lose your car, you may have to move into a shabby place to live, but you will totally live. And at the end of your days you will bless your life because you have done what you came here to do. Otherwise, you will live your life as a prostitute, you will do things only for a reason, to please other people, and you will never have lived. and you will not have a pleasant death.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Everything in this life has a purpose, there are no mistakes, no coincidences.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Beauty gets the attention, personality gets the heart.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

All events are blessings given to us to learn from.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Live, so you do not have to look back and say: 'God, how I have wasted my life.'

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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, we will then begin to live each day to the fullest, as if it was the only one we had.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I say to people who care for people who are dying, if you really love that person and want to help them, be with them when their end comes close. Sit with them - you don't even have to talk. You don't have to do anything but really be there with them.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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 Kubler-Ross

Dying is something we human beings do continuously, not just at the end of our physical lives on this earth.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

The ultimate lesson all of us have to learn is unconditional love, which includes not only others but ourselves as well.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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 Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-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.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

We need to teach the next generation of children from day one that they are responsible for their lives. Mankind's greatest gift, also its greatest curse, is that we have free choice. We can make our choices built from love or from fear.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

For those who seek to understand it, death is a highly creative force. The highest spiritual values of life can originate from the thought and study of death.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

I didn't fully realize it at the time, but the goal of my life was profoundly molded by this experience - to help produce, in the next generation, more Mother Teresas and less Hitlers.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Learn to get in touch with the silence within yourself, and know that everything in life has purpose. There are no mistakes, no coincidences, all events are blessings given to us to learn from.

- Elisabeth Kubler-Ross