What a wonderful affirmation – and invitation – to start inventing, if you haven’t already. Invent to your heart’s content and may your life be full to the brim, in the best possible way.

This line is a reflection on the fully lived nine decade span of Mary Delany (1700-1788), a woman more alive across 250 years or so than many people allegedly alive today.

‘Living a full life requires invention.’

Elsewhere, her biographer tells us:

‘She was calm, engaged, located, and alive. … able to begin to take in the brilliant facts of the world.’

See also my bestellar review of this book, complete with a mosaic of quotations and metaphors.

PS  Tell me, which of the two images do you prefer with this quotation?

Source: Molly Peacock, The Paper Garden: Mrs Delany Begins her Life’s Work at 72 (London: Bloomsbury, 2012 (2010)), p. 360 and 307

Photo credits: Jordan Donaldson at unsplash.com and holdosi at pixabay.com