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
You can have the other words-chance, luck, coincidence, serendipity. I'll take grace. I don't know what it is exactly, but I'll take it.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Grace is preferred over chance and luck as a guiding force in life.
In this quote, Mary Oliver emphasizes the importance of grace as a fundamental aspect of existence, which she regards as more reliable and meaningful than the randomness of chance or luck. She acknowledges the mystery of grace, suggesting that it encompasses something profound and transformative that can positively shape our lives.
Themes
GraceLuckChanceMeaningPhilosophy
In practice
Example use cases
In a speech about resilience, one might quote this to illustrate the importance of seeking grace rather than relying solely on luck.
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
To be convinced in our hearts that we have forgiveness of sins and peace with God by grace alone is the hardest thing.
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The more conscious I was of goodness and of all that was 'sublime and beautiful,'the more deeply I sank into my mire and the more ready I was to sink in it altogether.
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While money is used to finance speech, money is not speech.
John Paul StevensRead
As far as I'm concerned, I prefer silent vice to ostentatious virtue.
Albert EinsteinRead
Your mind makes out the orange by seeing it, hearing it, touching it, smelling it, tasting it and thinking about it but without this mind, you call it, the orange would not be seen or heard or smelled or tasted or even mentally noticed, it's actually, that orange, depending on your mind to exist! Don't you see that? By itself it's a no-thing, it's really mental, it's seen only of your mind. In other words it's empty and awake.
Jack KerouacRead
The highest religion is to rise to universal brother hood; aye to consider all creatures your equals.
Guru NanakRead