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You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain free margin, and even vagueness - perhaps ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things... Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
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"...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;...." Walt Whitman |
| "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." Walt Whitman Sayings |
"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..." Walt Whitman |
| A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| 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 Walt Whitman Sayings |
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| And your very flesh shall be a great poem. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| As soon as histories are properly told there is no more need of romances. Walt Whitman |
| Be curious, not judgmental. Walt Whitman Sayings |
| Behind this face that appears so impassive Hell's tides continually run Walt Whitman Quotes |
| Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give, I give myself. Walt Whitman |
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself, will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live? Walt Whitman Quotes |
| Character and personal force are the only investments worth anything Walt Whitman |
| 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.... Walt Whitman Quotations |
| 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.... Walt Whitman |
| Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination? Walt Whitman Adages |
| Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. Walt Whitman |
| Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books. Walt Whitman |
| Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling. Walt Whitman |
| 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 Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? Walt Whitman |
| Henceforth I ask not good-Fortune, I myself am good-Fortune. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| I accept reality and dare not question it Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. Walt Whitman |
| I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep. Walt Whitman Remarks |
| I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you Walt Whitman Quotations |
| I celebrate myself, and sing myself. Walt Whitman Remarks |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| I exist as I am, that is enough. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| I have learned that to be with those I like is enough. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| 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 Walt Whitman |
| I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election Walt Whitman Quotations |
| I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends Walt Whitman |
| I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| 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 Walt Whitman Quotes |
| I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| 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. 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. 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. Walt Whitman |
| I see the President almost every day. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face with its deep-cut lines, the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed. Walt Whitman |
| I shall use America and democracy as convertible terms Walt Whitman Quotations |
| I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd. I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition.... 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. Walt Whitman |
| If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred. Walt Whitman Adages |
| If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred Walt Whitman |
In the broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection. Walt Whitman |
| In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word Walt Whitman |
| In the faces of men and women I see God Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| In the faces of men and women I see God. Walt Whitman |
| It is only the novice in political economy who thinks it is the duty of government to make its citizens happy.-Government has no such office. To protect the weak and the minority from the impositions of the strong and the majority-to prevent any one from positively working to render the people unhappy, (if we may so express it,) to do the labor not of an officious inter-meddler in the affairs of men, but of a prudent watchman who prevents outrage-these are rather the proper duties of a government. Under the specious pretext of effecting "the happiness of the whole community," nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government have been carried through. The legislature may, and should, when such things fall in its way, lend its potential weight to the cause of virtue and happiness-but to legislate in direct behalf of those objects is never available, and rarely effects any even temporary benefit. Walt Whitman |
| Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you. Walt Whitman Sayings |
| 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. Walt Whitman Quotes |
| Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. Walt Whitman |
| Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others...
And your very flesh shall be a great poem. Walt Whitman Sayings |
Love the earth and sun and animals,
Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks,
Stand up for the stupid and crazy,
Devote your income and labor to others...
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Walt Whitman |
| Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men [sic] -- go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers or families -- 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, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.from the 1855 Preface to Leaves of Grass Walt Whitman |
| Not I - not anyone else, can travel that road for you, / You must travel it for yourself. Walt Whitman |
| Nothing endures but personal qualities Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| Of equality - As if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself - As if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same. Walt Whitman |
| Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people. Walt Whitman Remarks |
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!
Walt Whitman |
| Reexamine all that you have been told in school, or in church or in any book. Dismiss whatever insults your soul. Walt Whitman |
| Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Walt Whitman |
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties,
delights of the earth. Walt Whitman |
| Simplicity is the glory of expression Walt Whitman Quotations |
| 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? 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? Walt Whitman |
| The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity. 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. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book. Walt Whitman |
| The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions. 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. Walt Whitman |
| The future is no more uncertain than the present 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. Walt Whitman Adages |
| The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| The Past - the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf -the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past? Walt Whitman Sayings |
| The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing Walt Whitman |
| The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| The real war will never get in the books Walt Whitman 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. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
| The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem Walt Whitman Quotes |
| The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You. Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman Popular Quotes |
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. Walt Whitman |
| This is what you shall do: love the earth and sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with the powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers, of families: read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life: re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any books, and dismiss whatever insults your soul. Walt Whitman |
| To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier. Walt Whitman Adages |
| To have great poets there must be great audiences too. Walt Whitman |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
What do you think has become of the young and old men?
What do you think has become of the women and
children?
They are alive and well somewhere;
The smallest sprouts show there is really no death,
And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait
at the end to arrest it,
And ceased the moment life appeared.
All goes onward and outward. . . .and nothing collapses,
And to die is different from what any one supposed, and
luckier. Walt Whitman Quotations |
| Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. Walt Whitman |
| When I give I give myself. Walt Whitman Remarks |
Why are there trees I never walk under
But large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
Walt Whitman Sayings |
| 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. Walt Whitman |
| You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things. 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? Walt Whitman Sayings |
