May Sarton Quotes

Keep busy with survival. Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember nothing stays the same for long, not even pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

I think of the trees and how simply they let go, let fall the riches of a season, how without grief (it seems) they can let go and go deep into their roots for renewal and sleep.... Imitate the trees. Learn to lose in order to recover, and remember that nothing stays the same for long, not even pain, psychic pain. Sit it out. Let it all pass. Let it go.

I like trees because they seem more resigned to the way they have to live than other things do.

Change is inevitable. Why hold onto what you have to let go of?

[T]he merciful adjustment which nature makes when what cannot be cured must be endured.

As time goes on, you'll understand. What lasts, lasts; what doesn't, doesn't. Time solves most things. And what time can't solve, you have to solve yourself.

The trick was forgetting about what she had lost ...and learning to go on with what she had left.

The leaves let go, the seeds let go, and I must let go sometimes, too, and cast my lot with another of nature’s imperfect but tenacious survivors.

When remedies are past, the griefs are ended By seeing the worst, which late on hopes depended. To mourn a mischief that is past and gone Is the next way to draw new mischief on. What cannot be preserved when fortune takes, Patience her injury a mockery makes. The robb'd that smiles steals something for the thief; He robs himself that spends a bootless grief.

For us, it's a matter of just staying alive and getting the best deal we can now. Eventually, this will all straighten out. It may be two generations away or 10 generations away, but time is irrelevant in that sense. As long as we, as a people, stay alive, we will survive.

Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable, and remove yourself from the unacceptable.

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

Cutting one side of your head for a few months is not a big deal compared with what other people have to deal with in the world. Plus, hair grows back.

Renunciation remains sorrow, though a sorrow borne willingly.

One of the the great things about having had something that didn't work out is: So what? I am fine.

Things go up and down. If you can survive the down, it will come back.

One must know the so-called 'lesson of a downpour.' A man, caught in a sudden rain en route, dashes along the road not to get wet or drenched. Once one takes it for granted that in rain he naturally gets wet, he can be in a tranquil frame of mind even when soaked to the skin. This lesson applies to everything.

I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.

If we wait until our lives are free from sorrow or difficulty, then we wait forever. And miss the entire point.

I know that I'm very lucky to be alive. For 35 or 40 years I've spilt my blood and broke my bones and spent years in hospitals.

Pain makes man think. Thought makes man wise. Wisdom makes life endurable.

Without accepting the fact that everything changes, we cannot find perfect composure. Unfortunately, although it is true, it is difficult for us to accept it. Because we cannot accept the truth of transience, we suffer.

Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative.

Learn to get used to it. Eels get used to skinning.