David Whyte

Genius is becoming something you were all along.

— David Whyte

Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss.

— David Whyte

There is no house like the house of belonging.

— David Whyte

Poetry is a break for freedom.

— David Whyte

What you plan is too small for you to live.

— David Whyte

The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears

— David Whyte

“What I have not seen or failed to see I leave as a gift.”

— David Whyte

Inside everyone is a great shout of joy waiting to be born.

— David Whyte

Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.

— David Whyte

Sometimes everything has to be inscribed across the heavens so you can find the one line already written inside you.

— David Whyte

To remember the other world in this world is to live in your true inheritance.

— David Whyte

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

— David Whyte

The moment you’ve uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you’re already turning towards home.

— David Whyte

“Anything or anyone that does not bring you alive is too small for you.”

— David Whyte

Poetry is the art of overhearing ourselves say things from which it is impossible to retreat.

— David Whyte

Poetry for me has been a long pilgrimage, a journey and a growing relationship with the unknown.

— 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…

— David Whyte

I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you…

— David Whyte

What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough for the…

— David Whyte

“To be disappointed is to reassess our self and our inner world, and to be called to the larger foundational reality that…

— David Whyte

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

— David Whyte

We withdraw not to disappear, but to find another ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to step, and…

— David Whyte

To have a firm persuasion in our work - to feel that what we do is right for ourselves and good for…

— David Whyte

Sometimes it takes darkness and the sweet confinement of your aloneness to learn anything or anyone that does not bring you alive…

— David Whyte

In England especially, poetry's woven into the background fabric of society. And in Ireland, it's in the foreground. The place of the…

— David Whyte

To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather…

— David Whyte

We sabotage our creative possibilities because the world revealed by our imagination may not fit well with the life we have taken…

— David Whyte

Being young and trying to catch a glimpse of the depths, of the true self, of the soul, or whatever human beings…

— David Whyte

The art form has to do with the mystery and the hidden invitation that's in the room. And that's when the magic…

— David Whyte

To feel a full and untrammeled joy is to have become fully generous; to allow our selves to be joyful is to…

— David Whyte

See, even if you're stuck in life, if you can describe just exactly the way you're stuck, then you will immediately recognise…

— David Whyte

Desire demands only a constant attention to the unknown gravitational field which surrounds us and from which we can recharge ourselves every…

— David Whyte

“Realizing its inescapable nature, we can see heartbreak not as the end of the road or the cessation of hope but as…

— David Whyte

“FINISTERRE The road in the end taking the path the sun had taken, into the western sea, and the moon rising behind…

— David Whyte

What we see as risk and foolhardiness on the outside, can seem more like constant cohesive drive on the inside that holds…

— David Whyte

“One of the most beautifully disturbing questions we can ask, is whether a given story we tell about our lives is actually…

— David Whyte

“Sometimes, you need the ocean light, and colors you’ve never seen before painted through an evening sky. Sometimes you need your God…

— David Whyte

“When your eyes are tired the world is tired also. When your vision has gone no part of the world can find…

— David Whyte

“We can never know in the beginning, in giving ourselves to a person, to a work, to a marriage or to a…

— David Whyte

The workplace needs the poet's gift. But the poet also needs to be educated about the workplace. You're not just coming in…

— David Whyte