Walt Whitman Quotes

In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.

We were together. I forget the rest.

A Song of the good green grass! A song no more of the city streets; A song of farms - a song of the soil of fields. A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize.

Forsake all inhibitions, Pursue thy dreams.

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it.

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.

THIS dust was once the Man, / Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand, / Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, / Was saved the Union of These States.

You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe much unseen is also here

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it.

These are the days that must happen to you.

O America! Because you build for mankind I build for you.

Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless-each of us with his or her right upon the earth.

Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!

But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?

Long enough have you dream'd contemptible dreams, Now I wash the gum from your eyes, You must habit yourself to the dazzle of the light and of every moment of your life

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked.

When I give, I give myself.

All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.

You have not known what you are - you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return? The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk.

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.

Re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

O Captain my Captain! our fearful trip is done, / The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won

Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?

You will hardly know who I am or what I mean

We arrange our lives-even the best and boldest men and women that exist, just as much as the most limited-with reference to what society conventionally rules and makes right.

My rule has been, so far as I could have any rule (I could have no cast-iron rule) - my rule has been, to write what I have to say the best way I can - then lay it aside - taking it up again after some time and reading it afresh - the mind new to it. If there's no jar in the new reading, well and good - that's sufficient for me.

I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.

All the past we leave behind; We debouch upon a newer, mightier world, varied world, Fresh and strong the world we seize, world of labor and the march, Pioneers! O Pioneers!

I dote on myself. There is a lot of me and all so luscious.

The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

When the materials are all prepared and ready, the architects shall appear.

What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

For all these new and evolutionary facts, meanings, purposes, new poetic messages, new forms and expressions, are inevitable.

Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.

More and more too, the old name absorbs into me. Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!

O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you; As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.

TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty.

Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.

I hate commas in the wrong places.

All the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.

The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.