Mary Oliver Quotes

Infuse your life with action. Don't wait for it to happen. Make it happen. Make your own future. Make your own hope. Make your own love. And whatever your beliefs, honor your creator, not by passively waiting for grace to come down from upon high, but by doing what you can to make grace happen... yourself, right now, right down here on Earth.

You may be sitting around waiting for God to change your circumstances. Then you’re going to be happy, then your’re going to have a good attitude, then you’re going to give God praise. But God is waiting on you to get up on the inside. When you do your part, He’ll begin to change things and work supernaturally in your life.

Do you know why this world is as bad as it is?... It is because people think only about their own business, and won't trouble themselves to stand up for the oppressed, nor bring the wrong-doers to light... My doctrine is this, that if we see cruelty or wrong that we have the power to stop, and do nothing, we make ourselves sharers in the guilt.

According to me, your life is going to be a gradual process of becoming kinder and more loving. Hurry up. Speed it along. Start right now.

If you have an ideal world, your actions should follow suit. And that will sort of hopefully spread.

Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

How lovely to think that no one need wait a moment, we can start now, start slowly changing the world! How lovely that everyone, great and small, can make their contribution toward introducing justice straightaway... And you can always, always give something, even if it is only kindness!

Correcting oneself is correcting the whole world. The Sun is simply bright. It does not correct anyone. Because it shines, the whole world is full of light. Transforming yourself is a means of giving light to the whole world.

People who soar, are those who refuse to sit back and wish things would change

Don't take the attitude of waiting for people to be nice to you - be nice to them. Don't sit in front of a cold stove waiting for the heat. Put in the fuel. Act first.

Do what's right, first. Don't sit around and wait for someone else to do the right thing first.

It is so important not to let ourselves off the hook or to become apathetic or cynical by telling ourselves that nothing works or makes a difference. Every day, light your small candle.... The inaction and actions of many human beings over a long time contributed to the crises our children face, and it is the action and struggle of many human beings over time that will solve them-with God's help. So every day, light your small candle.

As you pray for forgiveness, you will find yourself forgiving others. As you thank God for His kindness, you will think of others, by name, who need your kindness. Again, that experience will surprise you every day, and over time it will change you.

Our dreams are just wishes, if we never follow them through with action. And in life, you have got to be able to light your own fire.

The place to begin the task of eliminating evil is within yourself.

Harshness is conquered by gentleness, hatred by love, lethargy by zeal and darkness by light.

In the search for our best selves, several questions will guide our thinking: Am I what I want to be? Am I closer to the Savior today than I was yesterday? Will I be closer yet tomorrow? Do I have the courage to change for the better?

JESUS WILL LIFT you out of the deepest pit, but He will not lift you out of your easy chair.

No matter what I said they insisted on thinking of God as something outside themselves. Something that yearns to take every indolent moron to His breast and comfort him. The notion that the effort has to be their own . . . and that the trouble they are in is all their own doing . . . is one that they can't or won't entertain.

Do what thy manhood bids thee do.

You must take action yourself, for Buddhas only teach the way.

An nice lady in the back...asked what I thought about how we begin to move forward. I think it is up to each individual, which then moves to your family, which moves to your community. Each person, in their own life, let your life be a light for peace, for justice, for all that is good. Just let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

If you aren’t where you want to be or you haven’t achieved all you hope to achieve, the reason most likely resides not around you but within you. Take responsibility and then take action.

My prayers, my God, flow from what I am not; I think thy answers make me what I am.

There is a moral obligation, I think, not to ally oneself with power against the powerless.