David Whyte Quotes & Sayings

“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.”

“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.”

“The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

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