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 WhyteRead
To seek out beauty in our work is to make a pilgrimage of our labors, to understand that the consummation of work lies not only in what we have done, but who we have become while accomplishing the task.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote suggests that finding beauty in our work transforms our efforts into a meaningful journey rather than just a completion of tasks.
David Whyte emphasizes that the true value of our work extends beyond the final outcome; it encompasses the growth and development we experience as individuals during the process. When we seek beauty in our tasks, we engage in a deeper, more reflective journey of self-discovery that enriches both our labor and our lives.
Themes
BeautyWorkJourneyGrowthLabor
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a team meeting to inspire colleagues about the deeper value of their contributions.
More from David Whyte
All quotes →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 WhyteRead
By definition, poetry works with qualities and dynamics that mainstream society is reluctant to face head-on. It's an interesting phenomenon that by necessity, poetry is just below the radar.
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The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
David WhyteRead
The severest test of work today, is not of our strategies, but of our imaginations and identities.
David WhyteRead
We learn, grow and become compassionate and generous as much through exile as homecoming, as much through loss as gain, as much through giving things away as in receiving what we believe to be our due.
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One thing is certain: the arts keep you alive. They stimulate, encourage, challenge, and, most of all, guarantee a future free from boredom. They allow growth and even demand it in that time of life we call maturity but too often enter it with a childish faith that what we learned in youth is sustenance enough for the years when most men are mentally famished but won't admit it—or when they are apt to curb their hunger with the sops of complacency, security, and the assurance of death.
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Color is sensibility in material form, matter in its primordial state.
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I was particularly proud of my performance as the Joker. I considered it a piece of pop art.
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I work with few colors, what creates the illusion of quantity is that they fell in the right place.
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No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.
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All fiction is about people, unless it's about rabbits pretending to be people. It's all essentially characters in action, which means characters moving through time and changes taking place, and that's what we call 'the plot'.
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