Sofía Ruiz > Sofía's Quotes

“To pay attention, this is our endless and proper work.”
― Mary Oliver

“Do you love this world?
Do you cherish your humble and silky life?
Do you adore the green grass, with its terror beneath?”
― Mary Oliver

“People aren't overcome by situations or outside forces. Defeat comes from within.”
― Banana Yoshimoto, Kitchen

“Instructions for living a life.
Pay attention.
Be astonished.
Tell about it.”
― Mary Oliver

“Sometimes I need
only to stand
wherever I am
to be blessed.”
― Mary Oliver, Evidence: Poems

“In the beginning I was so young and such a stranger to myself I hardly existed. I had to go out into the world and see it and hear it and react to it, before I knew at all who I was, what I was, what I wanted to be.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“In this universe we are given two gifts: the ability to love, and the ability to ask questions. Which are, at the same time, the fires that warm us and the fires that scorch us.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“A lifetime isn’t long enough for the beauty of this world
and the responsibilities of your life.

Scatter your flowers over the graves, and walk away.
Be good-natured and untidy in your exuberance.

In the glare of your mind, be modest.
And beholden to what is tactile, and thrilling.”
― Mary Oliver, The Leaf and the Cloud: A Poem

“You too can be carved anew by the details of your devotion.”
― Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings

“For it is precisely how I feel, who have inherited not measurable wealth but, as we all do who care for it, that immeasurable fund of thoughts and ideas, from writers and thinkers long gone into the ground—and, inseparable from those wisdoms because demanded by them, the responsibility to live thoughtfully and intelligently. To enjoy, to question—never to assume, or trample. Thus the great ones (my great ones, who may not be the same as your great ones) have taught me—to observe with passion, to think with patience, to live always caringly. So here I am, walking on down the sandy path, with my wild body, with the inherited devotions of curiosity and respect.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“May I be the tiniest nail in the house of the universe, tiny but useful.”
― Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays

“The more clearly we can focus our attention on the wonders and realities of the universe about us, the less taste we shall have for destruction.”
― Rachel Carson

“In nature nothing exists alone.”
― Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

“There is no better high than discovery.”
― E. O. Wilson

“I will argue that every scrap of biological diversity is priceless, to be learned and cherished, and never to be surrendered without a struggle.”
― E.O. Wilson

“I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.
"So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

“Courage is found in unlikely places.”
― J.R.R. Tolkien

“Love is not affectionate feeling, but a steady wish for the loved person's ultimate good as far as it can be obtained.”
― C.S. Lewis