Mary Oliver: Quotes about the world

Mary Oliver was American writer. Explore interesting quotes on world.
Mary Oliver: 196 quotes53 likes

“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

"In Blackwater Woods"
American Primitive (1983)
Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

“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.”

Mary Oliver

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 2

“Love yourself. Then forget it.
Then, love the world.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Evidence: Poems

“I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.”

Mary Oliver

"When Death Comes"
New and Selected Poems, Volume 2 (2005)

“So come to the pond,
or the river of your imagination,
or the harbor of your longing,

and put your lips to the world.

And live
your life.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Red Bird

“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

"The Ponds"
House of Light (1990)

“Beauty without purpose is beauty without virtue.
But all beautiful things, inherently, have this function —
to excite the viewers toward sublime thought.
Glory to the world, that good teacher.”

Mary Oliver

"Evidence"
Evidence (2009)

“… 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

“And that is just the point… how the world, moist and beautiful, calls to each of us to make a new and serious response. That's the big question, the one the world throws at you every morning. "Here you are, alive. Would you like to make a comment?”

Mary Oliver

“Wherever I am, the world comes after me.
It offers me its busyness. It does not believe
that I do not want it. Now I understand
why the old poets of China went so far and high
into the mountains, then crept into the pale mist.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Why I Wake Early

“Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?”

Mary Oliver

“You may not agree, you may not care, but
if you are holding this book you should know that of all the sights I love in this world — and there are plenty — very near the top of the list is this one: dogs without leashes.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Dog Songs

“My work is the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird - equal seekers of sweetness. Here the quickening yeast; there the blue plums…”

Mary Oliver

"Messenger"
Variant: My work is loving the world. Here the sunflowers, there the hummingbird — equal seekers of sweetness
Source: Thirst (2006)

“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

Source: Dog Songs

“When will you have a little pity for every soft thing that walks through the world, yourself included.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Blue Pastures

“Drive down any road,

take a train or an airplane
across the world, leave
your old life behind,

die and be born again~
wherever you arrive
they'll be there first,

glossy and rowdy
and indistinguishable.
The deep muscle of the world.”

Mary Oliver

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

“I know I can walk through the world, along the shore or under the trees, with my mind filled with things of little importance, in full self-attendance. A condition I can't really call being alive.”

Mary Oliver

Source: A Thousand Mornings

“There are a hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?”

Mary Oliver

Source: New and Selected Poems, Vol. 1

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”

Mary Oliver

Source: Upstream: Selected Essays