David Whyte Quotes

Once you start asking questions, innocence is gone.

We get wise by asking questions, and even if these are not answered, we get wise, for a well-packed question carries its answer on its back as a snail carries its shell.

We read books to find out who we are.

Good questions outrank easy answers.

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question.

We have to really educate ourselves in a way about who we are, what our real identity is.

You have to experience life, make observations, and ask questions.

I don't pretend we have all the answers. But the questions are certainly worth thinking about.

We read deeply for varied reasons, most of them familiar: that we cannot know enough people profoundly enough; that we need to know ourselves better; that we require knowledge, not just of self and others, but of the way things are.

Knowledge is the eye of desire and can become the pilot of the soul.

Writing is how I find out what I believe and what I care most deeply about. It's how I sort through the mess of daily experience and try to make sense of it - by stepping out of it for a while. Writing is how I train a searchlight into the darker corners of my self and the world, as I'm sure I'd never do otherwise.

If you do not know how to ask the right question, you discover nothing.

Not until we are lost do we begin to understand ourselves.

Philosophy is the product of wonder.

Writing isn't necessarily about what one knows but what one wants to know.

We have to have a very clear understanding of ourselves.

If you're interested in something, do some more research and don't be afraid to ask questions. At the very worst you're going to know more than you did at the start of the day.

All your life you compare and contrast, explore and search. But knowing yourself well is, well, elusive.

Asking the proper question is the central act of transformation!

We read to find ourselves, more fully and more strangely than otherwise we could hope to find.

The answers aren't important really... What's important is- knowing all the questions.

I was looking for myself and asking everyone except myself questions which I, and only I, could answer.

To understand yourself is the beginning of wisdom.

Our minds, bodies, feelings, relationships are all informed by our questions. What you ask is who you are. What you find depends on what you search for. And what shapes our lives are the questions we ask, refuse to ask, or never think of asking.

What I've come to know is that in life, it's not always the questions we ask, but rather our ability to hear the answers that truly enriches our understanding. Never, never stop learning.