Walt Whitman

We convince by our presence.

— Walt Whitman

Resist much, obey little.

— Walt Whitman

The future is no more uncertain than the present.

— Walt Whitman

Copulation is no more foul to me than death is.

— Walt Whitman

Song of Myself

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

— Walt Whitman

What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.

— Walt Whitman

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Simplicity is the glory of expression.

— Walt Whitman

Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.

— Walt Whitman

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

— Walt Whitman

Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.

— Walt Whitman

A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.

— Walt Whitman

I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.

— Walt Whitman

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.

— Walt Whitman

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

— Walt Whitman

We convince by our presence.

— 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

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

— Walt Whitman

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,

— Walt Whitman

If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred.

— 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

Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.

— Walt Whitman

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

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

— 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

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

— Walt Whitman

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.

— Walt Whitman

The real war will never get in the books.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,

— Walt Whitman

And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

— Walt Whitman

Produce great men, the rest follows.

— Walt Whitman

Produce great men, the rest follows.

— Walt Whitman

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

Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

— Walt Whitman

Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love;

— Walt Whitman

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

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

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Be curious, not judgmental.

— Walt Whitman

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

The future is no more uncertain than the present.

— Walt Whitman

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

— Walt Whitman

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

— Walt Whitman

Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.

— Walt Whitman

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

I exist as I am, that is enough.

— Walt Whitman

To have great poets, there must be great audiences.

— Walt Whitman

Produce great men, the rest follows.

— Walt Whitman

Freedom - to walk free and own no superior.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

To have great poets, there must be great audiences.

— 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

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

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

— Walt Whitman

I accept reality and dare not question it.

— Walt Whitman

Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.

— Walt Whitman

Nothing endures but personal qualities.

— Walt Whitman

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

— Walt Whitman

Song of myself

— Walt Whitman

To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.

— 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.

— Walt Whitman

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

— 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

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

— Walt Whitman

When I give I give myself.

— Walt Whitman

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

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?

— Walt Whitman

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

— 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

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

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

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

— Walt Whitman

I act as the tongue of you,

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.

— Walt Whitman

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— Walt Whitman

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

In our sun-down perambulations, of late, through the outer parts of Brooklyn, we have observed several parties of youngsters playing "base", a certain game of ball ... Let us go forth awhile, and get better air in our lungs. Let us leave our close rooms ... the game of ball is glorious.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

We Americans have yet to really learn our own antecedents, and sort them, to unify them. They will be found ampler than has been supposed, and in widely different sources. Thus far, impress'd by New England writers and schoolmasters, we tacitly abandon ourselves to the notion that our United States has been fashion'd from the British Islands only, and essentially form a second England only — which is a very great mistake.

— Walt Whitman

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

Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch. I am still bathing in the cheer he radiated.

— Walt Whitman

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

— Walt Whitman

I find I'm a good deal more of a socialist than I thought I was: maybe not technically, politically, so, but intrinsically, in my meanings.

— 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

I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!" He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: 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

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

— Walt Whitman

If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere — probably more than the rest of the world combined. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

— Walt Whitman

The beautiful uncut hair of graves.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.

— Walt Whitman

I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.

— Walt Whitman

The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

— Walt Whitman

I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.

— Walt Whitman

O the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning!

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

— Walt Whitman

I loafe and invite my soul.

— Walt Whitman

I have no mockings or arguments; I witness and wait.

— Walt Whitman

In the faces of men and women I see God.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

— Walt Whitman

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me,I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn."

— Walt Whitman

Freedom - to walk free and own no superior.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman.

— Walt Whitman

In this broad earth of ours,Nestles the seed perfection.

— Walt Whitman

Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems

— Walt Whitman

All, all for immortality,Love like the light silently wrapping all.

— 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

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,And the vast that is evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

— Walt Whitman

Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

O Banner!May they stand fast then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all, stand fast.

— Walt Whitman

Peace is always beautiful.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Lo! the moon ascending!Immense and silent moon.

— Walt Whitman

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost;That the hands of the sisters Death and Night incessantly softly wash again and ever again, this soiled world.

— Walt Whitman

When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

— Walt Whitman

Come lovely and soothing death,Sooner or later, delicate death.

— Walt Whitman

Praised be the fathomless universeFor the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.

— Walt Whitman

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done!The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.

— Walt Whitman

Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs.

— Walt Whitman

Peace is always beautiful.

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited;I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.

— Walt Whitman

The future is no more uncertain than the present.

— Walt Whitman

I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.

— Walt Whitman

What do you think has become of the young and old men?

— Walt Whitman

I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!

— Walt Whitman

The paths to the house I seek to make,But leave to those to come the house itself.

— Walt Whitman

Society waits unformed and is between things ended and things begun.

— Walt Whitman

Now obey thy cherished secret wish,Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!

— Walt Whitman

I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed;And I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.

— Walt Whitman

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

— Walt Whitman

I discover myself on the verge of a usual mistake.

— Walt Whitman

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love

— Walt Whitman

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

— Walt Whitman

For we cannot tarry here,

— Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.

— 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

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

— Walt Whitman

I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.

— Walt Whitman

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.

— Walt Whitman

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

— Walt Whitman

Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us.

— Walt Whitman

I believe in the flesh and the appetites;

— Walt Whitman

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

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

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

Nothing endures but personal qualities.

— Walt Whitman

poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you

— Walt Whitman

The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections,

— Walt Whitman

This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me

— Walt Whitman

I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness.

— Walt Whitman