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
Tis like the birthday of the world,_x000D_ _x000D_ When earth was born in bloom;_x000D_ _x000D_ The light is made of many dyes,_x000D_ _x000D_ The air is all perfume:_x000D_ _x000D_ There's crimson buds, and white and blue,_x000D_ _x000D_ The very rainbow showers_x000D_ _x000D_ Have turned to blossoms where they fell,_x000D_ _x000D_ And sown the earth with flowers.
Thomas HoodRead
Every living person and thing responds to beauty. We all thirst for it. We receive strength and renewal by seeing stirring and satisfying sites.
Lady Bird JohnsonRead
I remember three- and four-week-long snow days, and drifts so deep a small child, namely me, could get lost in them. No such winter exists in the record, but that's how Ohio winters seemed to me when I was little - silent, silver, endless, and dreamy.
Susan OrleanRead
I am absolutely enraptured by the atmosphere of a wreck. A dead ship is the house of a tremendous amount of life-fish and plants. The mixture of life and death is mysterious, even religious. There is the same sense of peace and mood that you feel on entering a cathedral.
Jacques Yves CousteauRead
Into every empty corner, into all forgotten things and nooks, nature struggles to pour life, pouring life into the dead, life into life itself.
Henry BestonRead
If you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it's your world for a moment.
Georgia O'KeeffeRead