“ To live in this world you must be able to do three things: to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3.8K
“ It is a serious thing – just to be alive – on this fresh morning – in this broken world. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 256
“ Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 4K
“ Someone I loved once gave me a box of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 1.6K
“ Instructions for living a life: Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3K
“ Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 2.3K
“ If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate) ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 1.9K
“ You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3.2K
“ When it's over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement. I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms. When it is over, I don't want to wonder if I have made of my life something particular, and real. I don't want to find myself sighing and frightened, or full of argument. I don't want to end up simply having visited this world. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 723
“ Last Night the Rain Spoke to Me" Last night Photo by Shawn Nystrand Photo by Shawn Nystrand the rain spoke to me slowly, saying, what joy to come falling out of the brisk cloud… That’s what it said as it dropped, smelling of iron, and vanished… Then it was over. The sky cleared. I was standing under a tree. The tree was a tree with happy leaves, and I was myself, and there were stars in the sky that were also themselves at the moment at which moment my right hand was holding my left hand which was holding the tree which was filled with stars and the soft rain – imagine! imagine! the long and wondrous journeys still to be ours. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 1.4K
“ A dog can never tell you what she knows from the smells of the world, but you know, watching her, that you know almost nothing. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
“ Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 507
“ You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers. Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting – over and over announcing your place in the family of things. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 2.3K
“ to live in this world you must be able to do three things to love what is mortal; to hold it against your bones knowing your own life depends on it; and, when the time comes to let it go, to let it go ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 1.6K
“ The Journey One day you finally knew what you had to do, and began, though the voices around you kept shouting their bad advice though the whole house began to tremble and you felt the old tug at your ankles. "Mend my life!" each voice cried. But you didn't stop. You knew what you had to do, though the wind pried with its stiff fingers at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible. It was already late enough, and a wild night, and the road full of fallen branches and stones. But little by little, as you left their voices behind, the stars began to burn through the sheets of clouds, and there was a new voice which you slowly recognized as your own, that kept you company as you strode deeper and deeper into the world, determined to do the only thing you could do determined to save the only life you could save. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 223
“ I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 2.9K
“ How I go to the woods Ordinarily, I go to the woods alone, with not a single friend, for they are all smilers and talkers and therefore unsuitable. I don’t really want to be witnessed talking to the catbirds or hugging the old black oak tree. I have my way of praying, as you no doubt have yours. Besides, when I am alone I can become invisible. I can sit on the top of a dune as motionless as an uprise of weeds, until the foxes run by unconcerned. I can hear the almost unhearable sound of the roses singing. If you have ever gone to the woods with me, I must love you very much. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3.4K
“ The Uses Of Sorrow (In my sleep I dreamed this poem) Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 1.2K
“ Still, what I want in my life is to be willing to be dazzled— to cast aside the weight of facts and maybe even to float a little above this difficult world. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 94
“ The Poet With His Face In His Hands You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn’t need anymore of that sound. So if you’re going to do it and can’t stop yourself, if your pretty mouth can’t hold it in, at least go by yourself across the forty fields and the forty dark inclines of rocks and water to the place where the falls are flinging out their white sheets like crazy, and there is a cave behind all that jubilation and water fun and you can stand there, under it, and roar all you want and nothing will be disturbed; you can drip with despair all afternoon and still, on a green branch, its wings just lightly touched by the passing foil of the water, the thrush, puffing out its spotted breast, will sing of the perfect, stonehard beauty of everything. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 793
“ Poetry is a lifecherishing force. For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3.7K
“ I Go Down To The Shore I go down to the shore in the morning and depending on the hour the waves are rolling in or moving out, and I say, oh, I am miserable, what shall— what should I do? And the sea says in its lovely voice: Excuse me, I have work to do. ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 764
“ If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There are plenty of lives and whole towns destroyed or about to be. We are not wise, and not very often kind. And much can never be redeemed. Still life has some possibility left. Perhaps this is its way of fighting back, that sometimes something happened better than all the riches or power in the world. It could be anything, but very likely you notice it in the instant when love begins. Anyway, that’s often the case. Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb. (Don't Hesitate) ”
- Mary Oliver- Copy
- 3.9K
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5