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Sometimes breaking the rules is extending the rules.
Mary Oliver
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Interpretation

What this quote means

Breaking the rules can sometimes mean redefining them for the better.

This quote by Mary Oliver suggests that there are times when adhering strictly to established rules can limit creativity and growth. In some situations, deviating from the norm or 'breaking the rules' may actually lead to a broader understanding and an expansion of those rules, ultimately resulting in progress and innovation.

Themes

RulesCreativityGrowthBreakProgress

In practice

Example use cases

This quote is perfect for a speech on creativity in the workplace.

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.
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I know the sag of the unfinished poem. And I know the release of the poem that is finished.
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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.
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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

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