David Whyte
David Whyte
David Whytewas an English professional footballer who played as a striker...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionPoet
companions courage gives great poems poetry sets straight
Poetry gives us courage and sets us straight with the world. Poems are great companions and friends.
admit beyond difficult fallible greatest lose powers sincere understand unspoken
To admit regret is to understand that we are fallible - that there are powers beyond us. To admit regret is to lose control not only of a difficult past but of the very story we tell about our present. To admit sincere and abiding regret is one of our greatest but unspoken contemporary sins.
great poetry
The thing about great poetry is we have no defenses against it.
apart broken exploded field great human prior promoted rise territory
One of the great difficulties as you rise up through an organisation is that your prior competencies are exploded and broken apart by the territory you've been promoted into: the field of human identity.
difficulty great leadership smacks
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.
german
When I'm working with German audiences, I will call on my Rilke and Goethe in the original.
escape life millions people quiet
There are millions of people living Thoreau's life of quiet desperation, and they do not have the language to escape from that desperation.
cannot convey courageous grown initial lion mouse naked parts power sounds speech steps wisdom
Lion sounds that have not grown from the mouse may exude naked power... but cannot convey any wisdom or understanding... The initial steps on the path to courageous speech then are the first tentative steps into the parts of us that cannot speak.
fear
It is not the thing you fear that you must deal with: it is the mother of the thing you fear.
It is difficult to be creative and enthusiastic about anything for which we do not feel affection.
carry fault full
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.
attempting change eliminate trying
Stop trying to change reality by attempting to eliminate complexity.
brief evocative lost possibilities
Regret is a short, evocative and achingly beautiful word: an elegy to lost possibilities even in its brief annunciation.
include job necessary richer
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.