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
The price of our vitality is the sum of all our fears
Interpretation
What this quote means
Our experiences and energy in life come with the cost of facing our fears.
David Whyte's quote suggests that the essence of living fully and vibrantly is inherently tied to confronting and understanding our fears. These fears can often hold us back, but by acknowledging them, we pay a price that enriches our vitality and existence. In essence, to truly embrace life, one must be willing to face the challenges that fear presents.
Themes
VitalityFearsLifeCourageFear
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about overcoming personal challenges.
More from David Whyte
All quotes βPoetry 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.
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.
David WhyteRead
What if the world is holding its breath - _x000D_ waiting for you to take the place that only you can fill?
David WhyteRead
Similar quotes
My whole strength lies in prayer and sacrifice, these are my invincible arms; they can move hearts far better than words, I know it by experience.
Therese Of LisieuxRead
Will minus intellect constitutes vulgarity.
Arthur SchopenhauerRead
People can't live with change if there's not a changeless core inside them.
Stephen CoveyRead
Eternity is not an unending succession of days in the calendar, but something more like the supreme moment of satisfaction, in which totality embraces us and we embrace totality.
Pope Benedict XviRead
If I have any beliefs about immortality, it is that certain dogs I have known will go to heaven, and very, very few persons.
James ThurberRead
If i should enter the house and speak with my own voice, at last, about its awful furnitutre, pulling apart the covering over the dusty bodies; the randy father, the husband holding ice in his hand like a blessing, the mother bleeding into herself and the small imploding girl, i say if i should walk into that web, who will come flying after me, leaping tall buildings? you?
Lucille CliftonRead