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
Sometimes I spend all day trying to count the leaves on a single tree... Of course I have to give up, but by then I'm half crazy with the wonder of it--the abundance of the leaves, the quietness of the branches, the hopelessness of my effort. And I am in that delicious and important place, roaring with laughter, full of earth-praise.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects on the overwhelming beauty of nature and the joy found in the act of observation, despite the futility of trying to comprehend it all.
In this quote, Mary Oliver poetically expresses the experience of being captivated by the natural world, particularly through the imagery of counting leaves on a tree. The futile effort symbolizes our attempts to understand the complexity and abundance of life, while the laughter and joy signify that true appreciation of nature comes not from complete understanding, but rather from being present and experiencing its wonders.
Themes
NatureBeautyWonderObservationJoyLife
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about the importance of preserving nature, one might quote this to emphasize the joy found in simply being present in the natural world.
More from Mary Oliver
All quotes →At 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
Twilight - a time of pause when nature changes her guard. All living things would fade and die from too much light or too much dark, if twilight were not.
Howard ThurmanRead
Give me strength to walk the soft earth, a relative to all that is.
Black ElkRead
Many animals even now spring out of the soil, Coalescing from the rains and the heat of the sun. Small wonder, then, if more and bigger creatures, Full-formed, arose from the new young earth and sky. The breed, for instance, of the dappled birds Shucked off their eggshells in the springtime, as Crickets in summer will slip their slight cocoons All by themselves, and search for food and life. Earth gave you, then, the first of mortal kinds, For all the fields were soaked with warmth and moisture.
LucretiusRead
Let us be good stewards of the Earth we inherited. All of us have to share the Earth's fragile ecosystems and precious resources, and each of us has a role to play in preserving them. If we are to go on living together on this earth, we must all be responsible for it.
Kofi AnnanRead
We feel the beauty of nature because we are part of nature and because we know that however much in our separate domains we abstract from the unity of Nature, this unity remains. Although we may deal with particulars, we return finally to the whole pattern woven out of these.
Ernest Everett JustRead
The mountain remains unmoved at its seeming defeat by the mist.
Rabindranath TagoreRead