Top 67 Mary Oliver Quotes (HOUSE OF LIGHT)

Top 10 Most Famous Mary Oliver Quotes (BEST)

“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

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

Someone I loved once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift. — Someone I **loved** once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this too, was a gift.

It is a serious thing just to be alive on this fresh morning in this broken world.

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

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.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

Instructions for living a life. Pay attention. Be astonished. Tell about it.

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. — 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?

12 Inspirational Mary Oliver Quotes About Life (HAPPINESS)

“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

I simply do not distinguish between work and play.

Keep some room in your heart for the unimaginable.

To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.

You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the responsibility for your life. — You must not ever stop being whimsical. And you must not, ever, give anyone else the **responsibility** for your life.

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. — 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**.

We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was happy. — We all have a hungry heart, and one of the things we hunger for is happiness. So as much as I possibly could, I stayed where I was **happy**.

I very much wished not to be noticed, and to be left alone, and I sort of succeeded.

I acknowledge my feeling and gratitude for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things. — I acknowledge my feeling and **gratitude** for life by praising the world and whoever made all these things.

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy, don’t hesitate. Give in to it.

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. — 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.

I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop time when something wonderful has touched us… — I held my breath as we do sometimes to stop **time** when something wonderful has touched us…

7 Mary Oliver Quotes on Her Beliefs

“The woods that I loved as a child are entirely gone. The woods that I loved as a young adult are gone. The woods that most recently I walked in are not gone, but they’re full of bicycle trails.”
Mary Oliver

I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed. — I believe in **kindness**. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.

I believe art is utterly important. It is one of the things that could save us.

To tell you the truth, I believe everything - tigers, trees, stones - are sentient in one way or another. You'd never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example. — To tell you the truth, I believe everything – tigers, trees, stones – are sentient in one way or another. You’d never catch me idly kicking a stone, for example.

And now you’ll be telling stories of my coming back - and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true- but they’ll be real. — And now you’ll be telling stories of my coming back – and they won’t be false, and they won’t be true- but they’ll be real.

For me the door to the woods is the door to the temple.

Maybe the desire to make something beautiful is the piece of God that is inside each of us.

16 Wise Mary Oliver Quotes that will Make You Think (WISDOM)

“There is nothing better than work. Work is also play; children know that. Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It’s duty.”
Mary Oliver

This is the first, the wildest and the wisest thing I know: that the soul exists and is built entirely out of attentiveness.

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. — 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**.

You have to be in the world to understand what the spiritual is about, and you have to be spiritual in order to truly be able to accept what the world is about.

Sometimes I need only to stand wherever I am to be blessed.

It is better for the heart to break, than not to break.

I have a notion that if you are going to be spiritually curious, you better not get cluttered up with too many material things.

You can fool a lot of yourself but you can't fool the soul. — You can fool a lot of yourself but you can’t fool the soul.

I want to believe that the imperfections are nothing — that the light is everything — that it is more than the sum of each flawed blossom rising and falling. And I do.

Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules.

So this is how you swim inward. So this is how you flow outwards. So this is how you pray.

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.

I went to India and was quite taken with it. There's a feeling there that things are holy first and useful second. — I went to **India** and was quite taken with it. There’s a feeling there that things are holy first and useful second.

Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.

And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for money, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain. — And to tell the truth I don’t want to let go of the wrists of idleness, I don’t want to sell my life for **money**, I don’t even want to come in out of the rain.

Said the river: imagine everything you can imagine, then keep on going.

14 Mary Oliver Quotes on Reading and Writing (POETRY)

“I decided very early that I wanted to write. But I didn’t think of it as a career. I didn’t even think of it as a profession… It was the most exciting thing, the most powerful thing, the most wonderful thing to do with my life.”
Mary Oliver