Wild Geese Quotes

• Sure, you can choose the safety and predictability of the cage, forfeiting the adventure God has destined for you. But you won't be the only one missing out or losing out. When you lack the courage to chase the Wild Goose, the opportunity costs are staggering. Who might not hear about the love of God if you don't seize the opportunity to tell them? Who might be stuck in poverty, stuck in ignorance, stuck in pain if you're not there to help free them? Where might the advance of God's kingdom in the world stall out because you weren't there on the front lines?

  Mark Batterson

  Pain, Adventure, Ignorance

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• If you feel the urge, don't be afraid to go on a wild goose chase. What do you think wild geese are for anyway?

  Will Rogers

  Thinking, Goes On, Feels

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• Winter's not gone yet, if the wild geese fly that way.

  William Shakespeare

  Winter, Gone, Way

  William Shakespeare (2010). “King Lear”, p.70, Broadview Press

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• Something told the wild geese
  It was time to go.
  Though the fields lay golden
  Something whispered, "snow."
  Leaves were green and stirring,
  Berries, luster-glossed,
  But beneath warm feathers
  Something cautioned, "frost."
  All the sagging orchards
  Steamed with amber spice
  But each wild breast stiffened
  At remembered ice.
  Something told the wild geese
  It was time to fly-
  Summer sun was on their wings,
  Winter in their cry.

  Rachel Field

  Summer, Winter, Autumn

  Rachel Field (1934). “Branches Green”

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• ...whoever you are, not matter how lonely the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh & exciting - over & over announcing your place in the family of things.

  Mary Oliver

  Lonely, Nature, Imagination

  Mary Oliver, “Wild Geese”

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• Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination.

  Mary Oliver

  Lonely, Imagination, World

  Mary Oliver (2006). “Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays”, p.9, Beacon Press

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• You do not have to be good. You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

  Mary Oliver

  Love, Inspirational, Animal

  Mary Oliver (1986). “Dream Work”, p.14, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.

  Mary Oliver

  Philosophy, Animal, Medicine

  Mary Oliver (1986). “Dream Work”, p.14, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine

  Mary Oliver

  Despair, Mines

  Mary Oliver (1986). “Dream Work”, p.14, Atlantic Monthly Press

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• A vague uncritical idealism always lends itself to ridicule and too much of it might be a danger to mankind, leading it round in a futile wild-goose chase for imaginary ideals.

  Lin Yutang

  Might, Too Much, Danger

  Lin Yutang (1937). “The Importance of Living”

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• Happiness in this world, when it comes, comes incidentally. Make it the object of pursuit, and it leads us a wild-goose chase, and is never attained. Follow some other object, and very possibly we may find that we have caught happiness without dreaming of it.

  Nathaniel Hawthorne

  Happiness, Dream, Literature

  Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Julian Hawthorne (2015). “Life and Genius of Nathaniel Hawthorne: Letters, Diaries, Reminiscences and Extensive Biographies: Autobiographical Writings of the Renowned American Novelist, Author of “The Scarlet Letter”, “The House of Seven Gables” and “Twice-Told Tales””, p.417, e-artnow

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• Wherever I live, I shall feel homesick for Tibet. I often think I can still hear the cries of wild geese and cranes and the beating of their wings as they fly over Lhasa in the clear, cold moonlight. My heartfelt wish is that my story may create some understanding for a people whose will to live in peace and freedom has won so little sympathy from an indifferent world.

  Heinrich Harrer

  Thinking, Wings, People

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• It might sound trite, but happiness is a decision not a destination, and my choices now are all based on whether not a particular action will get me closer to my goals. It's something I'm quite ruthless about, and it helps me avoid the aforementioned wild goose chases!

  Suw Charman-Anderson

  Goal, Choices, Decision

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• I am terminally curious, so I tend to be attracted to the shiny. That's a mixed blessing, as sometimes it means that I can end up right on the cutting edge, but sometimes it can result in wild goose chases as well. Either way, it makes life interesting!

  Suw Charman-Anderson

  Mean, Cutting, Blessing

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• Life a life of Spiritual Adventure. Much like a wild goose the Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed. An element of danger, an air of unpredictability surround Him. And while the name may sound a little sacrilegious, I cannot think of a better description of what it's like to pursue the Spirit's leading through life.

  Mark Batterson

  Spiritual, Adventure, Thinking

  Mark Batterson (2009). “Wild Goose Chase: Reclaim the Adventure of Pursuing God”, p.1, Multnomah

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• The folly of endless consumerism sends us on a wild goose-chase for happiness through materialism.

  Bryant H. McGill

  Wild Imagination, Materialism, Endless

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• I dropped my hoe and ran into the house and started to write this poem, 'End of Summer.’ It began as a celebration of wild geese. Eventually the geese flew out of the poem, but I like to think they left behind the sound of their beating wings.

  Stanley Kunitz

  Summer, Writing, Thinking

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• During my addled career as a trout fisherman I have gone on a lot of wild-goose chases, and I ruefully expect to go on a lot more before I hang up my waders

  John D. Voelker

  Fishing, Careers, Rivers

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• No more I do, your Majesty. But what's that got to do with it? I might as well die on a wild goose chase as die here.

  C. S. Lewis

  Might, Majesty, Narnia

  C.S.Lewis (2016). “The Chronicles of Narnia Vol II: Prince Caspian”, p.69, ENRICH CULTURE GROUP LIMITED

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• A war, or any wild-goose chase, is, as the vulgar use the phrase, a lucky turn-up of patronage for the minister, whose chief merit is the art of keeping himself in place.

  Mary Wollstonecraft

  Art, War, Liberty

  Mary Wollstonecraft (2008). “A Vindication of the Rights of Women”, p.152, Cosimo, Inc.

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• Wild Goose exemplifies how the Evangelical Left translates 'social justice' into Big Government and pacifism.

  Mark Tooley

  Government, Justice, Social

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• Was it for this the wild geese spread The gray wing upon every tide; For this that all that blood was shed, For this. Edward Fitzgerald died, And Robert Emmet and Wolfe Tone, All that delirium of the brave? Romantic Ireland's dead and gone, It's with O'Leary in the grave.

  William Butler Yeats

  Blood, Wings, Bravery

  "September, 1913" l. 7 (1914)

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• Liupan the Mountain of Six Circles Dazzling sky to the far cirrus clouds. I gaze at wild geese vanishing into the south. If we cannot reach the Long Wall we are not true men. On my fingers I count the twenty thousand li we have already marched. On the summit of Liupan the west wind lazily ripples our red banner. Today we have the long rope in our hands. When will we tie up the gray dragon of the seven stars?

  Mao Zedong

  Stars, Wall, Men

  Zedong Mao (2008). “The Poems of Mao Zedong”, p.69, Univ of California Press

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• I felt myself no longer a husk but a body with some of the body's sweet juices stirring again. I had my first dream in many months, confused but to this day imperishable, with a flute in it somewhere, and a wild goose, and a dancing girl.

  William Styron

  Girl, Dream, Sweet

  William Styron (1990). “Darkness visible: a memoir of madness”, Random House Incorporated

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