Mary Oliver Quotes

The most beautiful thing in the world is, of course, the world itself.

You will follow me, if we are what we are, you and I, if we live, if the world exists, if you know the meaning of this moment and can't let it slip by, as others let it slip, into the senselessness of the unwilled and unreached.

We are not here merely to make a living. We are here to enrich the world.

Life has no meaning except in terms of responsibility.

It's a sad and beautiful world.

...which causes me to wonder, my own purpose on so many days as humble as the spider's, what is beautiful that I make? What is elegant? What feeds the world?

It's your purpose to leave the world better than how you found it.

We each have a moral obligation to conserve and preserve beauty in this world; there is none to waste.

The world is our responsibility. We cannot evade it.

There is one purpose to life and one only: to bear witness to and understand as much as possible of the complexity of the world- its beauty, its mysteries, its riddles.

The earth turns on its orbit for You. The oceans ebb and flow for You. The birds sing for You. The sun rises and it sets for You. The stars come out for You. Every beautiful thing you see, every wondrous thing you experience, is all there, for You. Take a look around. None of it can exist, without You.

We create the world in which we live; if that world becomes unfit for human life, it is because we tire of our responsibility.

Duty does not have to be dull. Love can make it beautiful and fill it with life.

We have life. That's what's beautiful.

The world is so beautiful that I can hardly believe it exists.

In this world there is room for everyone, and the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.

One cannot build life from refrigerators, politics, credit statements and crossword puzzles. That is impossible. Nor can one exist for any length of time without poetry, without color, without love.

We save the world by being alive ourselves.

You cannot live a political life, you cannot live a moral life if you're not willing to open your eyes and see the world more clearly. See some of the injustice that's going on. Try to make yourself aware of what's happening in the world. And when you are aware, you have a responsibility to act.

Some lives, conducted with grace, are beautiful arcs bridging this world to eternity.

I have loved books all my life. There is nothing more beautiful in our material world than the book.

The only beautiful thing in the world whose beauty lasts for ever is a pure, fair soul.

If you haven't found something worth dying for, you're not fit to live.

The sea is not less beautiful in our eyes because we know that sometimes ships are wrecked by it.

Without transcendence, life has no beauty.