(?)
Quotes are added by the Goodreads community and are not verified by Goodreads. (Learn more)
Mary Oliver

“Understand from the first this certainty. Butterflies don’t write books, neither do lilies or violets. Which doesn’t mean they don’t know, in their own way, what they are. That they don’t know they are alive—that they don’t feel, that action upon which all consciousness sits, lightly or heavily. Humility is the prize of the leaf-world. Vainglory is the bane of us, the humans.”

Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays
Read more quotes from Mary Oliver


Share this quote:
Share on Twitter

Friends Who Liked This Quote

To see what your friends thought of this quote, please sign up!


This Quote Is From

Upstream: Selected Essays Upstream: Selected Essays by Mary Oliver
24,723 ratings, average rating, 4,078 reviews
Open Preview

Browse By Tag