Top 100 Whyte Quotes
#1. Whyte's work remains a living and usable handbook for improving our cities, our countryside, and our lives.
Nathan Glazer
#2. The poet David Whyte calls this sense of creative entitlement "the arrogance of belonging," and claims that it is an absolutely vital privilege to cultivate if you wish to interact more vividly with life.
Elizabeth Gilbert
#3. I believe this Emperador Distillers investment in Whyte & Mackay is good for the Philippines as a whole, not only beneficial to our business.
Andrew Tan
#4. Jane Austen never did marry. Why doesthat statement call for such reflexive pity? It carries a diferent meaning if we follow it up: Jane Austen never did marry, and therefore she was given the time and perspective to produce books as well-written as those by anyone who ever lived.
-David Whyte
David Whyte
#6. The great enemy of communication, we find, is the illusion of it. We have talked enough; but we have not listened. And by not listening we have failed to concede the immense complexity of our society - and thus the great gaps between ourselves and those with whom we seek understanding.
William H. Whyte
#7. But what would that be like
feeling the tide rise
out of the numbness inside
David Whyte
#8. To see the full miraculous essentiality of the color blue is to be grateful with no necessity for a word of thanks. To see fully, the beauty of a daughter's face is to be fully grateful without having to seek a God to thank him.
David Whyte
#9. The moment you've uttered the exact dimensionality of your exile, you're already turning towards home.
David Whyte
#10. To be human is to become visible while carrying what is hidden as a gift to others.
David Whyte
#11. There are millions of people living Thoreau's life of quiet desperation, and they do not have the language to escape from that desperation.
David Whyte
#12. The onlooker had better wipe the sympathy off his face. What he has seen is a revolution, not the home of little cogs and drones. What he has seen is the dormitory of the next managerial class.
William H. Whyte
#13. One small thing
I've learned these years,
how to be alone,
and at the edge of aloneness
how to be found by the world.
David Whyte
#14. The same man who will quote from Benjamin Franklin on thrift for the house organ would be horrified if consumers took these maxims to heart and started putting more money into savings and less into installment purchases.
William H. Whyte
#15. Poetry is language against which you have no defenses.
David Whyte
#16. [There is no shortage of scientific talent.] But [I am] much less optimistic about the managerial vision [of the pharmaceutical industry] to catalyse these talents to deliver the results we all want.
James Whyte Black
#17. She knew exactly how he was feeling, because experience had taught her that the kind of excitement she was feeling at that moment was never, ever one-sided. On the contrary, she knew that it was born of acute and mutual anticipation, and she knew, too, that it would not be denied.
Jack Whyte
#18. There are many tough conversations, but one of the most difficult is between a parent and an adolescent daughter, partly because as a parent we are almost always attempting to relate to someone who is no longer there.
David Whyte
#19. The greatest tragedy is to live out someone else's life thinking it was your own.
David Whyte
#20. The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties.
David Whyte
#21. We're moving toward the kind of work world which has less security. But we hope it has more creativity and possibility of real engagement.
David Whyte
#22. Without the compassionate understanding of the fear and trepidation that lie behind courageous speech, we are bound only to our arrogance.
David Whyte
#23. What if the world is holding its breath -
waiting for you to take the place that only you can fill?
David Whyte
#24. I am ashamed to say this, but as a child, neither my parents not my teachers pushed me to read. In fact, I did not read an entire book through until I was a grown man and had learned the awesome power of reading on my own.
Daniel Whyte III
#25. 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
#27. Prayer is the only way to amend your life: and without prayer, it will never be mended.
Alexander Whyte
#28. Enough.
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
Until now.
David Whyte
#29. James 4:14New King James Version (NKJV)
14 whereas you do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away.
Garfield Whyte
#30. The quality of taking responsibility does not come naturally. It has to be taught
more by example than by anything else.
Daniel Whyte III
#31. 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
#32. People do not always argue because they misunderstand one another, they argue because they hold different goals.
William H. Whyte
#33. To give generously but appropriately and then, most difficult of all, and as the full apotheosis of the art, with feeling, in the moment and spontaneously, has always been recognized as one of the greatest of human qualities.
David Whyte
#34. An educated woman carries herself with a humble, quiet grace, yet her presence is powerful. She does not feel as thou she needs to act masculine to exude authority and power.
Daniel Whyte III
#35. Start close in,
don't take
the second step
or the third,
start with the first
thing
close in,
the step
you don't want to take.
David Whyte
#36. You'll always love the person, if you're sensible. But you get a lot of people, especially in divorces and separations, doing a lot of damage to themselves, because they can't figure out that they actually still love this person, but not in their original way.
David Whyte
#37. Therefore, at any time of life, follow your own questions; don't mistake other people's questions for your own.
David Whyte
#38. Gratitude arises from paying attention, from being awake in the presence of everything that lives within and without us.
David Whyte
#39. Trees are contagious; as soon as one neighborhood or street is planted, citizen pressure builds up for action from the next street.
William H. Whyte
#40. Your great mistake is to act the drama as if you were alone.
David Whyte
#41. To remember the other world in this world is to live in your true inheritance.
David Whyte
#42. We shape our self
to fit this world
and by the world
are shaped again
David Whyte
#43. It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.
William H. Whyte
#44. Some may think that little creature is useless," Eliam said. "But even the very smallest of all creations is essential to our existence. Every single one adds to the whole.
S.L. Whyte
#45. Every kind of prayer, not intercessory prayer only, which is the highest kind of prayer, but all prayer, from the lowest kind to the highest, is impossible in a life of known and allowed sin.
Alexander Whyte
#47. I ask the reader to remember that what is most obvious may be most worthy of analysis. Fertile vistas may open out when commonplace facts are examined from a fresh point of view.
Lancelot Law Whyte
#48. When I recite poems onstage, I put myself into the very personal struggle and it grants tremendous perspective. At the same time you get another perspective on the poem you're reciting.
David Whyte
#49. The only choice we have as we mature is how we inhabit our vulnerability, how we become larger and more courageous and more compassionate through our intimacy with disappearance...
David Whyte
#50. 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
#51. Art is the act of triggering deep memories of what it means to be fully human.
David Whyte
#52. 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.
David Whyte
#53. Another one? They seem to be multiplying like flies, these philosophers.
Mervyn S. Whyte
#54. Whatever their occupation, almost all organization people feel their particular job is depression-proof.
William H. Whyte
#55. To forge an untouchable, invulnerable identity is actually a sign of retreat from this world; of weakness, a sign of fear rather than strength, and betrays a strange misunderstandin g of an abiding, foundational and necessary reality: that untouched, we disappear.
David Whyte
#56. Admit sin, and you banish prayer. But, on the other hand, entertain, and encourage, and practice prayer, and sin will sooner or later flee before it.
Alexander Whyte
#57. The courageous conversation is the one you don't want to have.
David Whyte
#58. The street is the river of life of the city, the place where we come together, the pathway to the center.
William H. Whyte
#59. We speak continually of saving time, but time in its richness is most often lost to us when we are busy without relief.
David Whyte
#60. No man's prayer is acceptable with God whose life is not well pleasing before God.
Alexander Whyte
#61. One should not only be smart in his head, but one should also be smart in how he relates to other people.
Daniel Whyte III
#62. Yes,it is remarkable how far a person can travel by sea.
S.L. Whyte
#63. Honesty allows us to live with not knowing. We do not know the full story; we do not know where we are in the story. We do not know who, ultimately, is at fault or who will carry the blame in the end.
David Whyte
#64. In the poetic tradition, the heart's affections are indeed holy, and if organizations are asking for people's hearts and minds, they are asking in a way for their holy and hidden affections at the same time.
David Whyte
#65. 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
#66. All of our great traditions, religious, contemplative and artistic, say that you must a learn how to be alone - and have a relationship with silence. It is difficult, but it can start with just the tiniest quiet moment.
David Whyte
#67. The spectacle of people following current custom for lack of will or imagination to do anything else is hardly a new failing.
William H. Whyte
#68. 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
#69. Stop trying to change reality by eliminating complexity.
David Whyte
#70. If you've given away a sense of your own destiny, you need enormous amounts of hierarchy and protection within the structure to make up for what you've given away.
David Whyte
#71. There is no house like the house of belonging.
David Whyte
#72. The outlaw is the radical, the one close to the roots of existence. The one who refuses to forget their humanity and, in remembering, helps everyone else remember, too.
David Whyte
#73. I knew even then, the first time that I saw you, that I loved you.
Jack Whyte
#74. What is time? How is it measured? Why do we measure it? What is its purpose?
-Mr. Ludwig
S.L. Whyte
#75. Honesty lies in understanding our close and necessary relationship with not wanting to hear the truth.
David Whyte
#76. In Germany, they have great difficulty with anything that smacks of cultism or messianic leadership. You can't talk about leadership in its charismatic forms.
David Whyte
#77. Only once did God choose a completely sinless preacher.
Alexander Whyte
#78. Honesty is not found in revealing the truth, but in understanding how deeply afraid of it we are. To become honest is in effect to become fully and robustly incarnated into powerlessness.
David Whyte
#79. I want to know if you are willing to live, day by day, with the consequence of love.
David Whyte
#80. Let the apple ripen
on the branch
beyond your need
to take it down.
David Whyte
#81. Honesty is reached through the doorway of grief and loss.
David Whyte
#82. The true signature and perhaps even the miracle of human love is helplessness, and all the more miraculous because it is a helplessness which we wittingly or unwittingly choose; in our love of a child, a partner, a work, or a road we have to take against the odds.
David Whyte
#83. There is a lovely root to the word humiliation - from the latin word humus, meaning soil or ground. When we are humiliated, we are in effect returning to the ground of our being.
David Whyte
#84. What attracts people most, it would appear, is other people.
William H. Whyte
#85. We withdraw not to disappear, but to find another ground from which to see; a solid ground from which to step, and from which to speak again, in a different way, a clear, rested, embodied voice we begin to remember again as our own.
David Whyte
#86. The greatest luxury of having money should be not having to worry about it.
David Whyte
#87. Sincere regret may be a faculty for paying attention to the future, for sensing a new tide where we missed a previous one, for experiencing timelessness with a grandchild where we neglected a boy of our own.
David Whyte
#88. 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
#89. 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
#90. feeling fatally drawn to him as a ship to the rock on which it will dash itself to pieces,
Carolyn Whyte
#91. Read and admire, but then go back to first principles and ask the question yourself, in your own way. Dare to disagree.
David Whyte
#92. A good poem looks life straight in the face, unflinching, sincere, equal to revelation through loss or gain.
David Whyte
#93. Genius is becoming something you were all along.
David Whyte
#94. 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
#95. 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.
David Whyte
#96. There's a fierce practicality and empiricism which the whole imaginative, lyrical aspect of poetry comes from.
David Whyte
#97. But grace has only one direction that it can take. Grace always flows down.
Alexander Whyte
#98. The process of truly learning is laborious, monotonous, and at times down right bitter and boring. Therefore, obtaining a truly higher education will require of you a determined mind and a will to stick and stay. In short, it will take discipline. But in the end, it will be worth it all.
Daniel Whyte III
#99. Poetry carries the imagery which is large enough for the kind of life we want for ourselves.
David Whyte
#100. What you plan is too small for you to live.
David Whyte
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