30+ Best David Whyte Quotes From The Philosophical Poet

The Anglo-Irish poet, David Whyte is an imaginative poet who explores human relationships with different aspects of the world.

He has written many books and poetry collections on such explorations. His most famous book, 'The Heart Aroused: Poetry And The Preservation Of The Soul In Corporate America' topped the charts as a US bestseller.

He gained much of his poetic inspiration from reading as well as from listening to songs from a very young age. He has written ten volumes of poetry and four prose books. Some of his other books are 'The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work', 'Self And Relationship', 'Crossing The Unknown Sea: Work As Pilgrimage Of Identity', and many more. This article consists of some of the best David Whyte quotes that you can take inspiration from.

For more great poetry quotes, read these Mary Oliver quotes and Carl Sandburg quotes as well.

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Here is a list of best poet David Whyte quotes on work, quotes on vulnerability, quotes on self-growth, and other great quotes.

1. "What I have not seen or failed to see I leave as a gift."

- David Whyte.

2. "What you can plan is too small for you to live. What you can live wholeheartedly will make plans enough for the vitality hidden in your sleep."

- David Whyte.

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

- David Whyte.

4. "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.

5. "These few words are enough. If not these few words, this breath.  If not this breath, this sitting here. This opening to the life we have refused again and again. Until now."

- David Whyte.

6. "Therefore, at any time of life, follow your own questions; don’t mistake other people’s questions for your own."

- David Whyte.

7. "The dynamic of friendship is almost always underestimated as a constant force in human life."

- David Whyte.

8. "Love is the conversation between possible, searing disappointment and a profoundly imagined sense of arrival and fulfillment; how we shape that conversation is the touchstone of our ability to love in the real inhabited world."

- David Whyte.

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

- David Whyte.

10. "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.

11. "Preserving the soul means that we come out of hiding at last and bring more of ourselves into the workplace."

- David Whyte.

12. "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.

This list contains quotes from the poet that will inspire you and help you broaden your outlook. Check out these David Whyte quotes.

13. "I want to know if you are prepared to live in the world with its harsh need to change you. If you can look back with firm eyes saying this is where I stand."

- David Whyte.

14. "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.

15. "We can never know in the beginning, in giving ourselves to a person, to a work, to a marriage or to a cause, exactly what kind of love we are involved with."

- David Whyte.

16. "There is no possibility of pursuing a work without coming to terms with all the ways it is impossible to do it. Feeling far away from what we want tells us one of two things about our work: that we are at the beginning or that we have."

- David Whyte.

17. "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.

18. "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.

19. "There is no house like the house of belonging."

- David Whyte.

20. "The hope for unconditional love is the hope for a different life than the one we have been given."

- David Whyte.

Below is a list of some popular quotes from the poet and his works such as poet David Whyte quotes on friendship, quotes on love, on life, and various other interesting topics.

21. "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.

22. "What shape waits in the seed of you to grow and spread its branches against a future sky?"

- David Whyte.

23. "Things have a way of being richer in the end, a product better made, for the circuitous route we take to include all the elements that are necessary for a job well done."

- David Whyte.

24. "But no matter the medicinal virtues of being a true friend or sustaining a long close relationship with another, the ultimate touchstone of friendship is not improvement, neither of the other nor of the self, the ultimate touchstone is witness, the privilege of having been seen by someone and the equal privilege of being granted the sight of the essence of another, to have walked with them and to have believed in them, and sometimes just to have accompanied them for however brief a span, on a journey impossible to accomplish alone."

- David Whyte.

25. "Our work is to make ourselves visible in the world. This is the soul's individual journey, and the soul would much rather fail at its own life than succeed at someone else's."

- David Whyte.

26. "What is precious inside us does not care to be known by the mind in ways that diminish its presence."

- David Whyte.

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

- David Whyte.

28. "No matter the self-conceited importance of our labors we are all compost for worlds we cannot yet imagine."

- David Whyte.

29. "Heartbreak is our indication of sincerity: in a love relationship, in a work, in trying to learn a musical instrument, in the attempt to shape a better more generous self."

- David Whyte.

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

- David Whyte.

Here at Kidadl, we have carefully created lots of interesting family-friendly quotes for everyone to enjoy! If you liked our suggestions for David Whyte quotes then why not take a look at these Charles Bukowski quotes or Mark Nepo quotes too?

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