QuoteProject
You want to cry aloud for your mistakes. But to tell the truth the world doesn't need any more of that sound.
Mary Oliver
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Acknowledging mistakes is important, but excessive lamenting does not benefit anyone.

This quote by Mary Oliver suggests that while it is natural to feel regret and sorrow over one's mistakes, expressing this grief loudly does not contribute positively to the world around us. Instead of dwelling on our failures, we should focus on how to move forward and learn from them without adding more negativity to our environment.

Themes

MistakesRegretLearningGrowthPositivity

In practice

Example use cases

During a motivational speech about overcoming challenges.

More from Mary Oliver

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
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

We have to cultivate contentment with what we have. We really don't need much. When you know this, the mind settles down. Cultivate generosity. Delight in giving. Learn to live lightly. In this way, we can begin to transform what is negative into what is positive. This is how we start to grow up.
Tenzin PalmoRead
People think of the inventor as a screwball, but no one ever asks the inventor what he thinks of other people.
Charles KetteringRead
The scepticism which men affect towards their higher inspirations is often not an honest doubt, but a guilty negligence, and is a sign of narrow mind and defective wisdom.
James MartineauRead
Our responsibility begins with our imagination.
Haruki MurakamiRead
...it is so silly of people to fancy that old age means crookedness and witheredness and feebleness and sticks and spectacles and rheumatism and forgetfulness! It is so silly! Old age has nothing whatever to do with all that. The right old age means strength and beauty and mirth and courage and clear eyes and strong painless limbs.
George MacdonaldRead
He was no longer scared of what tomorrow might bring because yesterday has brought it.
Neil GaimanRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.