40 Mary Oliver Quotes For a Fulfilled Life
Discover inspiration and wisdom for a fulfilling life with our collection of 40 Mary Oliver quotes. Explore themes of gratitude, creativity, and the art of living with purpose.
Mary Jane Oliver was an American poet known for her deep connection to the natural world and her ability to express profound insights in simple, yet elegant language.
Oliver’s poetry is known for its simplicity and accessibility. Her use of clear, vivid language allows readers of all backgrounds to connect with her work easily.
Many of Oliver’s poems delve into spiritual and philosophical questions. Her reflections on life, death, and the mysteries of existence appeal to readers seeking contemplative and thought-provoking literature.
She won the National Book Award in 1992 for her collection New and Selected Poems, and the Pulitzer Prize in 1984 for American Primitive.
Here are some of her most famous poems:
- “Wild Geese”
- “The Summer Day”
- “Praying”
- “In Blackwater Pond”
- “Slug”
Let her words illuminate your path and inspire a journey of fulfillment. Enjoy!
Best Mary Oliver Quotes
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
“You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.”
“Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
“The most regretful people on earth are those who felt the call to creative work, who felt their own creative power restive and uprising, and gave to it neither power nor time.”
“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
“Listen—are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
“Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.”
“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
“Love yourself. Then forget it. Then, love the world.”
“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.”
“I don’t want to end up simply having visited 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.”
“Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“I want to think again of dangerous and noble things. I want to be light and frolicsome. I want to be improbable and beautiful and afraid of nothing, as though I had wings.”
“I tell you this to break your heart, by which I mean only that it break open and never close again to the rest of the world.”
“You can have the other words—chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I’ll take grace. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I’ll take it.”
“Listen, are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?”
“Let me keep my distance, always, from those who think they have the answers.”
“You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life.”
“Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.”
“Hello, sun in my face. Hello you who made the morning and spread it over the fields…Watch, now, how I start the day in happiness, in kindness.”
“If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.”
“it is a serious thing // just to be alive / on this fresh morning / in this broken world.”
“I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.”
“I read the way a person might swim, to save his or her life. I wrote that way too.”
“It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.”
“He is exactly the poem I wanted to write.”
“Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.”
“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us…”
“But I also say this: that light is an invitation to happiness, and that happiness, when it’s done right, is a kind of holiness, palpable and redemptive. “
“One tree is like another tree, but not too much. One tulip is like the next tulip, but not altogether. More or less like people—a general outline, then the stunning individual strokes.”
“When it’s over, I want to say: all my life I was a bride married to amazement.”
“I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us…”
“Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.”
“Ten times a day something happens to me like this – some strengthening throb of amazement – some good sweet empathic ping and swell. This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.”
“I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”
Disclaimer: All quotes credits goes to the respective writers/authors and full credits goes to them. We don’t own any copyrights we have curated from various sources.
