Mary Oliver Quotes

Nobody wants to have meaninglessness in their lives. You probably see a lot of people living their lives that don't have a whole lot of meaning that you can perceive, and you don't want that for yourself.

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one.

The way to choose happiness is to follow what is right and real and the truth for you. You can never be happy living someone else's dream. Live your own. And you will for sure know the meaning of happiness.

May I not seem to have lived in vain.

At the end of our lives we all ask, 'Did I live? Did I love? Did I matter?'

I'd rather be a failure at something I love than a success at something I hate.

The person lives twice who lives the first life well.

I think the saddest thing in the world will be for people who face their death and realize they never lived. That won't be me.

False life is exhausting; Real Life is inexhaustible.

Money - like health, love, happiness, and all forms of success that you want to create for yourself - is the result of living purposefully. It is not a goal unto itself.

A real life, a life that leaves a deposit in the shape of something alive.... It's difficult to say what makes a life a real life.... You could also say it depends on a person being identical with himself.

What you want to do is to get to the point where you only do what matters to you. The real goal in life is to become more of who you are, so that you can make the choices that really satisfy who you are and what you want to do.

Happiness is not on my list of priorities. I just deal with day-to-day things. If I'm happy, I'm happy – and if I'm not, I don't know the difference... Knowing that you are the person you were put on this earth to be – that's much more important than just being happy.

Success is clarity of my intention....and reaching that intention while being true to myself and with joy.

Be really, really true to yourself. That to me, has been key to me in understanding how I want to live the second half of my life.

Every healthy person must have a goal in life and that life must have content.

You may have success in life, but then just think of it - what kind of life was it? What good was it - you've never done the thing you wanted to do in all your life. I always tell my students, go where your body and soul want to go. When you have the feeling, then stay with it, and don't let anyone throw you off.

If you listen to the real in you, that part that's pulsing and has questions and is trying to figure something out, it will shape your life in a way where, when you get to be sixty, you'll succeed. You'll be happy about your life.

I won't have any money to leave behind. I won't have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind.

The dream of man's heart ... is that life may complete in significant pattern.

He who with sincerity seeks his real purpose in life is himself sought by that purpose.

The real joy in life comes from finding your true purpose and aligning it with what you do every single day.

I don't want to end up simply having visited this world.

I'm going to a special place when I die, but I want to make sure my life is special while I'm here.

We all have different desires and needs, but if we don't discover what we want from ourselves and what we stand for, we will live passively and unfulfilled. Sooner or later, we are all asked to compromise ourselves and the things we care about. We define ourselves by our actions. With each decision, we tell ourselves and the world who we are. Think about what you want out of this life, and recognize that there are many kinds of success.