Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

15 quotes

The Swiss -American psychiatrist Elisabeth Kubler-Ross is someone whose pithy observations have become part of everyday conversation. Known for the "Kübler-Ross model", their words carry the weight of lived experience. Our collection holds 24 quotes from Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, each offering a different angle on Death, Love, Time, Learning, and Beauty. To get a sense of their style, try: "Should you shield the canyons from the windstorms you would never see the true beauty of their carvings."

“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

Death

All Quotes by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

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

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

God

“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

Experience

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

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Learning

“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

Time

“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

Death

“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

Learning

“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

Death

“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.”

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Death

“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

Death

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

— Elisabeth Kubler-Ross

Beauty

“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

Death

“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

Fear

“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

Beauty

“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

Death

“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

Love