Walt Whitman Quotes

Under the specious pretext of effecting 'the happiness of the whole community,' nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government has been carried through.

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

Produce great men, the rest follows.

A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; every spear of grass-the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, all these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles.

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems

Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty.

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.

Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.

Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat; Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best; Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

I was in the midst of it all - saw war where war is worst - not on the battlefields, no - in the hospitals ... there I mixed with it: and now I say God damn the wars - allw ars: God damn every war: God damn 'em! God damn 'em!

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out.

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.

I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy.

Be curious, not judgmental.

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.

Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.

My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth. I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them

Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space.

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I can bear it.

A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.... [T]he wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain; But in my soul I plainly heard. Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high, Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs - out of its foot-thick bark, That chant of the seasons and time - chant, not of the past only, but of the future.

And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results, And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.

Resist much, obey little.

What has miserable, inefficient Mexico...to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?

The fruition of beauty is no chance of hit or miss... it is inevitable as life.

I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.

Well, every man has a religion; has something in heaven or earth which he will give up everything else for - something which absorbs him - which may be regarded by others as being useless - yet it is his dream, it is his lodestar, it is his master. That, whatever it is, seized upon me, made me its servant, slave - induced me to set aside the other ambitions a trail of glory in the heavens, which I followed, followed with a full heart. ...When once I am convinced, I never let go.

WE two boys together clinging, One the other never leaving, Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making, Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching, Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving. No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving, threatening, Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, on the turf or the sea-beach dancing, Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feebleness chasing, Fulfilling our foray.

Wisdom is not finally tested by the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

I will not descend among professors and capitalists.

I act as the tongue of you, ... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.

I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from, The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love; But now I think there is no unreturn'd love—the pay is certain, one way or another; (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd; Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.

The past, the future, majesty, love - if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.

O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.

I sing the body that is electric! I celebrate the Self yet to be unveiled!

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.

A man can be a hero in any profession

I think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost .

There was a child went forth everyday, And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or dread, that object he became, And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day... or for many years or stretching cycles of years.