David Whyte quotes

The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering. (David Whyte)

A soul-based workplace asks things of me that I didn't even know I had. It's constantly telling me that I belong to something large in the world.

David Whyte

Poetry is often the art of overhearing yourself say things you didn't know you knew. It is a learned skill to force yourself to articulate your life, your present world or your possibilities for the future.

David Whyte

A sure sign of a soul-based workplace is excitement, enthusiasm, real passion; not manufactured passion, but real involvement. And there's very little fear.

David Whyte

I believe that human beings are desperate, always, to belong to something larger than themselves.

David Whyte

The great poems are not about experience, but are the experience itself, felt in the body.

David Whyte

To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.

David Whyte

A real conversation always contains an invitation. You are inviting another person to reveal herself or himself to you, to tell you who they are or what they want.

David Whyte

A good poem looks life straight in the face, unflinching, sincere, equal to revelation through loss or gain.

David Whyte

Being a good parent will necessarily break our hearts as we watch a child grow and eventually choose their own way, even through many of the same heartbreaks we have traversed.

David Whyte

All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment. (David Whyte)

It might be liberating to think of human life as informed by losses and disappearances as much as by gifted appearances, allowing a more present participation and witness to the difficulty of living.

David Whyte

The frail, vulnerable sounds of which we are capable seem to be essential to a later ability to roar like a lion without scaring everyone to death.

David Whyte

By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.

David Whyte

It is the province of poetry to be more realistic and present than the artificial narratives of an outer discourse, and not afraid of the truthful difficulty of the average human life.

David Whyte

Regret is a short, evocative and achingly beautiful word: an elegy to lost possibilities even in its brief annunciation.

David Whyte

Poetry is a street fighter. It has sharp elbows. It can look after itself. Poetry can't be used for manipulation; it's why you never see good poetry in advertising.

David Whyte

There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from.

David Whyte

David Whyte

Occupation: English Poet
Quotes count: 18

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