Mary Oliver Quotes

What I will do is work, although it is clear that we all want to play.

I have a lot more responsibilities, I guess you could say. I have a lot more responsibilities than a lot of people my age.

Children play earnestly as if it were work. But people grow up, and they work with a sorrow upon them. It's duty.

And then there is the universal role of adult. When you play that role, you take yourself and life very seriously. Spontaneity, lightheartedness, and joy are not part of that role.

Work consists of whatever a body is obliged to do. Play consists of whatever a body is not obliged to do.

Some people do need to grow up, but I don't think I'm there yet. I don't think I'm ready to do grown-up things and be a grown-up.

Being a kid is so much more fun than being an adult. I think that's the crux of it. I think men are just less inclined to grow up because it's much more fun being a child.

I tell my daughter Nyssa, 'You should respect my work, and I will also respect yours when you grow up.' 'Work is worship' is what I have told her.

Work is an activity that is financially-driven or one that you'd like to do less of.

I was a serious kid to an absurd degree. I was overwhelmed with responsibility. You know, trying to play grown up. I overdid it.

To work with children anywhere is just plain fun.

We children learned responsibility automatically.

There's a certain gravity in Stokes, due to the situations I have to handle.

Freedom makes a huge requirement of every human being. With freedom comes responsibility. For the person who is unwilling to grow up, the person who does not want to carry is own weight, this is a frightening prospect.

At 35, I'm definitely starting to feel more like a grown-up than I ever have. There's nothing in my life that is childish or whimsical. Having fun is fantastic and I never want to lose a sense of that - and also, I think, you have to have that to put into your work or else it's going to feel stiff.

All people shall have the right and the obligation to work.

My father taught me to work; he did not teach me to love it.

Life is earnest - and always has been.

I had no plans to become a responsible person.

The problem with growing up is that once you're grown up, the people who aren't grown up aren't fun anymore.

Deemest thou laborOnly is earnest?Grave is all beauty,Solemn is joy.

That's why they call it work, because it's not what you'd prefer to do with your free time.

I know how to smile, I know how to laugh, I know how to play. But I know how to do these things only after I have fulfilled my mission.

Man hath his daily work of body or mind Appointed.

While love takes on itself impossible tasks, yet it finds that love lightens all loads. It is the same burden that wings are to a bird, that sails are to a ship. Nothing is hard if done for love's sweet sake. The yoke of love is easy; the yoke of duty is hard. There is all the difference in the world between being drawn by love and being driven by duty. The task may be the same, but love makes everything light, and duty makes everything drudgery.