Mary Oliver Quotes

In imagination she sailed over storied seas that wash the distant shining shores of "faëry lands forlorn," where lost Atlantis and Elysium lie, with the evening star for pilot, to the land of Heart's Desire. And she was richer in those dreams than in realities; for things seen pass away, but the things that are unseen are eternal.

The same yesterday, today, and forever.

Above or Love, Hope, Hate or Fear, It lives all passionless and pure: An age shall fleet like earthly year; Its years in moments shall endure. Away, away, without a wing, O'er all, through all, its thought shall fly; A nameless and eternal thing, Forgetting what it was to die.

Yes, I have dreams. I ofttimes dream of Love As radiant and brilliant as a star. As changeless, too, as that fixed light afar Which glorifies vast worlds of space above.

The movements which work revolutions in the world are born out of the dreams and visions in a peasant's heart on the hillside.

Deserts possess a particular magic, since they have exhausted their own futures, and are thus free of time. Anything erected there, a city, a pyramid, a motel, stands outside time. It's no coincidence that religious leaders emerge from the desert. Modern shopping malls have much the same function. A future Rimbaud, Van Gogh or Adolf Hitler will emerge from their timeless wastes.

Being a model to the world, eternal virtue will never falter in you, and you return to the boundless.

If I wanted to order a ring for myself, the inscription I should choose would be: "Nothing passes away." I believe that nothing passes away without leaving a trace, and that every step we take, however small, has significance for our present and our future existence.

Music never goes away. It is always available, but we're not always available for music.

While fashion is exciting because it changes all the time, it is also fleeting. Film, though, is forever. In a way therefore, film is the ultimate design project.

Never put an age limit on your dreams.

No rest without love, no sleep without dreams of love- be mad or chill obsessed with angels or machines, the final wish is love -cannot be bitter, cannot deny, cannot withhold if denied: the weight is too heavy

It is not for man to rest in absolute contentment. He is born to hopes and aspirations as the sparks fly upward, unless he has brutalized his nature and quenched the spirit of immortality which is his portion.

God planted a dream in your heart for a reason. No one else can dream it for you. No one else will accomplish it for you.

No, Time, thou shalt not boast that I do change.

Nothing endures except truth.

Extract the eternal from the ephemeral.

England is never in a hurry because she is eternal.

Further, if Spirit has any meaning at all, then it must be eternal, or without beginning or end. If Spirit had a beginning in time, then it would be strictly temporal, it would not be timeless and eternal. And this means, as regards your own awareness, that you cannot become enlightened. You cannot attain enlightenment. If you could attain enlightenment, then that state would have a beginning in time, and so it would not be true enlightenment.

I want to say to you that there is life and dreams and surprises after 30-and 40, and 50, and 60, and 77! Believe me, life is one long surprise.

We must dream so big that without the support that comes through favor with God and man, we could never accomplish what is in our hearts.

How sweet is the assurance, how comforting is the peace that come from the knowledge that if we marry right and live right, our relationship will continue, notwithstanding the certainty of death and the passage of time. Men may write love songs and sing them. They may yearn and hope and dream. But all of this will be only a romantic longing unless there is an exercise of authority that transcends the powers of time and death.

Old and new make the warp and woof of every moment. There is no thread that is not a twist of these two strands.

All but God is changing day by day.