Walt Whitman Quotes

Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.

In the faces of men and women, I see God.

Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.

Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.

At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer or Shakspeare. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something old or odd

Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her shall I follow.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine everything could be worse but isn't and so we are justified in being grateful - and shadows everything could be better but isn't and so it is easy to be bitter 'unless you decide to look on the bright side will fall behind you.

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing lacking.

...of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, the one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him. While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.

Do anything, but let it produce joy.

Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.

I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep for the dead I loved so well.

The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.

And as to you Death, and you bitter hug of mortality, it is idle to try to alarm me.... And as to you corpse, I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweet-scented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips — I reach to the polished breasts of melons. And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in nature.

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?

The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long.

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard.

I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.

You want to know a sure way to lose money? Buy what's popular and don't know what you are investing in.

All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, The insignificant is as big to me as any, (What is less or more than a touch).

O captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weather'd every wrack The prize we sought is won The port is near, the bells I hear The people all exulting While follow eyes, the steady keel The vessel grim and daring But Heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red Where on the deck my captain lies Fallen cold and dead.

Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.

I and this mystery, here we stand.

I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.

And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other.

Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

The purpose of democracy - supplanting old belief in the necessary absoluteness of establish'd dynastic rulership, temporal, ecclesiastical, and scholastic, as furnishing the only security against chaos, crime, and ignorance - is, through many transmigrations, and amid endless ridicules, arguments, and ostensible failures

The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions.

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.

The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.

I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is sign'd by God's name.

Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.

There will never be any more perfection than there is now.

Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul, Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.

Where the earth is, we are.