David Whyte

What you plan is too small for you to live.

— David Whyte

Poetry is a break for freedom.

— David Whyte

Genius is becoming something you were all along.

— David Whyte

There is no house like the house of belonging.

— David Whyte

Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss.

— David Whyte

Absent the edge, we drown in numbness.

— David Whyte

Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.

— David Whyte

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

— David Whyte

The courageous conversation is the one you don't want to have.

— David Whyte

Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.

— David Whyte

The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.

— David Whyte

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future.

— David Whyte

Heartbreak is how we mature... There is almost no path a human being can follow that does not lead to heartbreak.

— David Whyte

We are the only species on earth capable of preventing our own flowering.

— David Whyte

I returned to poetry as a more precise way to describe the world, more precise than science.

— David Whyte

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

— David Whyte

A good poem has its own life. It's like bringing a child into the world. You, the poet, birthed the child, but…

— David Whyte

and how we are all preparing for that abrupt waking, and that calling, and that moment we have to say yes, except…

— David Whyte

“To quote a Shakespearean cliché, repeated to death because it is so stubbornly true: “All the world’s a stage.” Work is theater.…

— David Whyte

It might be liberating to think of human life as informed by losses and disappearances as much as by gifted appearances, allowing…

— David Whyte

If in your mind it was possible to take a year's sabbatical from work to reassess your life, what would you do…

— David Whyte

I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love and the bitter unwanted…

— 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…

— 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

It's my contention that there is no sincere path a human being can take without breaking his or her heart...so it can…

— 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

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a…

— David Whyte

Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous,…

— 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

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

— 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

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

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

— David Whyte

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for a while. Plain sailing…

— 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

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

— 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

“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

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

— 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