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What we strive for in perfection is not what turns us into the lit angel we desire what disturbs and then nourishes has everything we need.
David Whyte
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David Whyte
Age: 59
Born: 1965
Born: September 21
Film Actor
Film Director
Film Producer
Poet
Stage Actor
Television Actor
Marrickville
New South Wales
Australia
Turns
Desire
Inspirational
Disturbs
Everything
Nourishes
Need
Lit
Needs
Strive
Angel
Perfection
More quotes by David Whyte
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
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
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
The marvelous thing about a good question is that it shapes our identity as much by the asking as it does by the answering.
David Whyte
The tragedy with velocity as the answer to complexity is that, after awhile, you cannot see or comprehend anything that is not traveling at the same speed you are. And you actually start to feel disturbed by people who have a sense of restfulness to their existence.
David Whyte
Genius is becoming something you were all along.
David Whyte
The fear of loss, in one form or another, is the motivator behind all conscious and unconscious dishonesties.
David Whyte
Courage is the measure of our heartfelt participation with life, with another, with a community, a work, a future. To be courageous, is not necessarily to go anywhere or do anything except to make conscious those things we already feel deeply and then to live through the unending vulnerabilities of those consequences.
David Whyte
Shedding the carapace we have been building so assiduously on the surface, we must by definition give up exactly what we thought was necessary to protect us from further harm.
David Whyte
I returned to poetry as a more precise way to describe the world, more precise than science.
David Whyte
Anything that does not bring you alive is too small for you.
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 fear.
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
If I don't have time for the writing, it's because I'm not making that time. It's really just a question of whether you want to or not, whether you feel you deserve to write or not.
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
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
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
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into the conversation. The kettle is singing even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots have left their arrogant aloofness and seen the good in you at last. All the birds and creatures of the world are unutterably themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
David Whyte
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
Everyone casts a shadow. Everyone has a relationship with the fearful unknown.
David Whyte