Famous Walt Whitman Quotations

First 1 Last 
"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."
by Walt Whitman
"O lands! O all so dear to me -- what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is."
by Walt Whitman
"And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death."
by Walt Whitman
"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."
by Walt Whitman
"I exist as I am, that is enough."
by Walt Whitman
"And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud."
by Walt Whitman
"And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheefully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait... And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)"
by Walt Whitman
"Answer That you are here---that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
by Walt Whitman
"Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)"
by Walt Whitman
"Do I contradict myself Very well then I contradict myself,"
by Walt Whitman
"Either define the moment or the moment will define you."
by Walt Whitman
"Every moment of light and dark is a miracle."
by Walt Whitman
"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me."
by Walt Whitman
"Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling."
by Walt Whitman
"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."
by Walt Whitman
"Hardy went down to botanize in the swamp, while Meredith climbed towards the sun. Meredith became, at his best, a sort of daintily dressed Walt Whitman: Hardy became a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over the village idiot."
by Gilbert Keith Chesterton
"Here lies... Walt Whitman. Aaargh! Damn you Walt Whitman! I... hate... you... Walt... freakin... Whitman, leaves of grass my ass!"
by Homer Simpson
"I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best."
by Walt Whitman
"I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
by Walt Whitman
"I celebrate myself, and sing myself."
by Walt Whitman
"I have learned that to be with those I like is enough."
by Walt Whitman
"I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's self is."
by Walt Whitman
"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends"
by Walt Whitman
"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."
by Walt Whitman
"I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value,"
by Walt Whitman
"I see great things in baseball. It's our game--the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us."
by Walt Whitman
"I shall use America and democracy as convertible terms"
by Walt Whitman
"If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred."
by Walt Whitman
"Judging from the main portion of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy."
by Walt Whitman
"My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic."
by Walt Whitman
"Nothing endures but personal qualities."
by Walt Whitman
"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."
by Walt Whitman
"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."
by Walt Whitman
"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons."
by Walt Whitman
"Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle."
by Walt Whitman
"Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch."
by Walt Whitman
"Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?"
by Walt Whitman
"Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me And why should I not speak to you"
by Walt Whitman
"Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love."
by Walt Whitman
"The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul."
by Walt Whitman
"The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give."
by Walt Whitman
"The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing."
by Walt Whitman
"The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing"
by Walt Whitman
"The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it."
by Walt Whitman
"This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat."
by Walt Whitman
"This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven."
by Walt Whitman
"To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier."
by Walt Whitman
"To have great poets, there must be great audiences."
by Walt Whitman
"Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?"
by Walt Whitman
"Youth, large, lusty, loving - Youth, full of grace, force, fascination. Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?"
by Walt Whitman
"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, They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.'"
by Walt Whitman
"I think I could always live with animals. The more you're around people, the more you love animals.'"
by Walt Whitman
"When I heard the learn"
by Walt Whitman
"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."
by Walt Whitman
"Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people."
by Walt Whitman
"The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world."
by Walt Whitman
"A great city is that which has the greatest men and women."
by Walt Whitman
"The only dance masters I could have were Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Walt Whitman and Nietzsche."
by Isadora Duncan
"...The city fireman-the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack'd square, The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring, The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line, the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water, The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets-the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution, The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them, The crowd with their lit faces, watching-the glare and dense shadows;...."
by Walt Whitman
"A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."
by Walt Whitman
"Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior."
by Walt Whitman
"Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune."
by Walt Whitman
"The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves."
by Walt Whitman
"There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he look'd upon, 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 streching eyeless years, The early lilacs became part of the child, And grass and white and red morning-glories and white and red clover, and the song of the phoebe-bird..."
by Walt Whitman
"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."
by Walt Whitman
"The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love."
by Walt Whitman
"O the joy of the strong-brawn'd fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent."
by Walt Whitman
"Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)"
by Walt Whitman
"The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and my loitering. I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. The last scud of the day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk. I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags. I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre for your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."
by Walt Whitman-Leaves of Grass
"What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the words I have read in my life."
by Walt Whitman
"I accept reality and dare not question it."
by Walt Whitman
"The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity."
by Walt Whitman
"The city sleeps and the country sleeps, the living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, the old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; and these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be of these more or less I am, and of these one and all I weave the song of myself."
by Walt Whitman
"There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe."
by Walt Whitman
"Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely."
by Walt Whitman
"Whatever satisfies the soul is truth."
by Walt Whitman
"The female that loves unrequited sleeps, And the male that loves unrequited sleeps, The head of the money-maker that plotted all day sleeps, And the enraged and treacherous dispositions, all, all sleep."
by Walt Whitman
"And the voice of my spirit tallied the song of the bird. ..."
by Walt Whitman
"As I ebb'd with the ocean of life, As I wended the shores I know, As I walk'd where the ripples continually wash you Paumanok,"
by Walt Whitman
"Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Ebb, ocean of life, (the flow will return,) Cease not your moaning you fierce old mother,..."
by Walt Whitman
"From the beach the child holding the hand of her father, Those burial clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,..."
by Walt Whitman
"For my enemy is dead, a man divine as myself is dead, I look where he lies white-faced and still in the..."
by Walt Whitman
"Formless stacks of bodies and bodies by themselves, dabs of flesh upon the masts and spars,..."
by Walt Whitman
"I cease my song for thee, From my gaze on thee in the west, fronting the west, communing with thee,..."
by Walt Whitman
"I believe in you my soul, the other I am must not abase itself to you, And you must not be abased to the other."
by Walt Whitman
"I lean and loaf at my ease observing a spear of summer grass. ..."
by Walt Whitman
"In the swamp in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song...."
by Walt Whitman
"Let that which stood in front go behind, Let that which was behind advance to the front,..."
by Walt Whitman
"On a flat road runs the well-trained runner, He is lean and sinewy with muscular legs,..."
by Walt Whitman
"O past! O happy life! O songs of joy! In the air, in the woods, over fields,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Over the tree-tops I float thee a song, Over the rising and sinking waves, over the myriad fields and the..."
by Walt Whitman
"That sport'st amid the lightning-flash and thunder-cloud, In them, in thy experiences, had'st thou my soul,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Then to the third—a face nor child nor old, very calm, as of beautiful yellow-white ivory,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Till at latest lingering of the night, indeed just as the dawn appear'd,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Three forms I see on stretchers lying, brought out there untended lying,..."
by Walt Whitman
"Thou born to match the gale, (thou art all wings,) To cope with heaven and earth and sea and hurricane,"
by Walt Whitman


Hire a Writer