David Whyte (poet) Quotes

11 Sourced Quotes

Being young and trying to catch a glimpse of the depths, of the true self, of the soul, or whatever human beings have called it over the centuries, we often find ourselves surrounded by bossy, hectoring voices trying to short-circuit our personal experience by super-imposing their own disappointments. Much of this bossiness masquerades as an education.

David Whyte

Some things cannot be spoken or discovered until we have been stuck, incapacitated, or blown off course for awhile. Plain sailing is pleasant, but you are not going to explore many unknown realms that way.

David Whyte

To feel abandoned is to deny the intimacy of your surroundings.

David Whyte

I want to know
if you know
how to melt into that fierce heat of living
falling toward
the center of your longing.

David Whyte

Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation.

David Whyte

I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love.

David Whyte

We sabotage our creative possibilities because the world revealed by our imagination may not fit well with the life we have taken so much trouble to construct over the years. Faced with the pain of that distance, the distance between desire and reality, we turn just for a moment and quickly busy ourselves.

David Whyte

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

David Whyte

For the personality, bankruptcy or failure may be a disaster. For the soul, it may be grist for its strangely joyful mill, and a condition it has been secretly engineering for years.

David Whyte

It doesn't interest me if there is one God or many gods. I want to know if you belong or feel abandoned. If you know despair or can see it in others.

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