I try to be good but sometimes a person just has to break out and act like the wild and springy thing one used to be. It's impossible not to remember wild an want it back.
Mary OliverRead
And who will care, who will chide you if you wander away from wherever you are, to look for your soul?
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the importance of self-discovery and the freedom to seek one's true self, without fear of judgment.
In this quote, Mary Oliver poses a rhetorical question that invites reflection on the societal pressures that often deter individuals from exploring their own identities. By suggesting that no one truly cares or chastises us for embarking on a personal journey to find our soul, she encourages us to prioritize our own quest for understanding and authenticity above external opinions.
Themes
Self-DiscoveryIdentitySoulFreedomAuthenticity
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can inspire individuals during a graduation speech, encouraging them to embark on their own journeys.
More from Mary Oliver
All quotes βAt the time I was growing up, literature was involved with the so-called confessional poets. And I was not interested in that. I did not think that specific and personal perspective functioned well for the reader at all.
Mary OliverRead
I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
Mary OliverRead
For poems are not words, after all, but fires for the cold, ropes let down to the lost, something as necessary as bread in the pockets of the hungry.
Mary OliverRead
If I have any lasting worth, it will be because I have tried to make people remember what the Earth is meant to look like.
Mary OliverRead
Every day I see or hear something that more or less kills me with delight, that leaves me like a needle in the haystack of light.
Mary OliverRead
Similar quotes
I am resolved that I will not through humility become the devil's attorney. I will endeavor to speak a good word for the truth.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Without deep reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people.
Albert EinsteinRead
The history of liberty is the history of limitations on the power of government, not the increase of it. When we resist, therefore, the concentration of power, we are resisting the processes of death, because concentration of power is what always precedes the destruction of human liberties.
Woodrow WilsonRead
Everything lives and lasts by the inner necessity of its being, by its own nature's need.
Richard WagnerRead
Truth and non-violence are not cloistered virtues but applicable as much in the forum and the legislatures as in the market place.
Mahatma GandhiRead
It is wrong to have an ideal view of the world. That's where the mischief starts. That's where everything starts unravelling.
V. S. NaipaulRead