Walt Whitman Quotes (160 Quotes)

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

The great poems, Shakespeare's included, are poisonous to the idea of the pride and dignity of the common man, the life-blood of democracy

America's game has the snap, go, fling, of the American atmosphere - belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws is just as important in the sum total of our historic life

Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul.

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.

If you done it, it ain't bragging.

O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice O harvest of my lands O boundless summer growths O lavish, brown, parturient earth O infinite, teeming womb A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling.

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

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.

In this broad earth of ours, Amid the measureless grossness and the slag, Enclosed and safe within its central heart, Nestles the seed of perfection.

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

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

Perhaps the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same to bring people back from their present strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete.

Joy, shipmate, joy (Pleased to my soul at death I cry), Our life is closed, our life begins, The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last, she leaps She swiftly courses from the shore, Joy, shipmate, joy.

I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.

Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....

To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.

Rush fans hoping to see more of the band may take comfort from the album's final song. Out of the Cradle, ... Here we come out of the cradle Endlessly rocking.

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

In the dooryard fronting an old farmhouse near the whitewash'd palings, Stands the lilacbush tallgrowing with heartshaped leaves of rich green, with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicatecolor'd blossoms and heartshaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break.

O joy of suffering To struggle against great odds to meet enemies undaunted To be entirely alone with them to find how much one can stand To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, death, face to face To mount the scaffold to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance To be indeed a God.

I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass.

I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.

Press close bare-bosomed night -- press close magnetic nourishing night Night of south winds night of the large few stars Still nodding night mad naked summer night.

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

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

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in nature.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

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

Produce great men, the rest follows.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed.

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.

Wisdom is not finally tested in 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 celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume.

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.

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?

In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name. And I leave them where they are, for I know that wherever I go, others will punctually come for ever and ever.

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

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

Why should I wish to see God better than this day I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters dropped in the street, and every one is signed by Gods name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoeer I go Others will punctually come forever and forever.

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs as the trees and the animals do.

When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.

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

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, A sunlit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.

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