Walt Whitman Quotes

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

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

I keep thinking about you every few minutes all day.

The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.

Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.

Over all the sky - the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded with eternal stars.

I know perfectly well my own egotism.

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

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

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.

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

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.

My ties and ballasts leave me - I travel - I sail - My elbows rest in the sea-gaps. I skirt the sierras. My palms cover continents - I am afoot with my vision.

To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the ships, with men in them, what stranger miracles are there?

It takes more than industry to industrialize.

And I or you pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth.

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

A man can be a hero in any profession

All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

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

Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.

I refuse putting from me the best that I am.

I inhale great draught of space...the east and west are mine...and the north and south are mine...I am grandeur than I thought...I did not know i held so much goodness.

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

And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.

You linger to see his back, and the back of his neck and shoulder-side...The Bending forward and backward of the rowers...

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost.

What beauty there is in words; what a lurking curious charm in the sound some words.

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.

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

O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?

I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.

O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.

I tramp a perpetual journey.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments.

I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.

And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles

I know I am deathless…We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?

There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.

Let that which stood in front go behind, let that which was behind advance to the front, let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, let the old propositions be postponed.

Out of every fruition of success, no matter what, comes forth something to make a new effort necessary.

There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate with the theory of the earth.

Now I see that there is no such thing as love unreturn'd. The pay is certain, one way or another.

O lands! O all so dear to me - what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.

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

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!

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