Walt Whitman Quotes

369 Sourced Quotes

My spirit has pass'd in compassion and determination around the whole earth. I have look'd for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them

Walt Whitman
He [President Abraham Lincoln] has a face like a hoosier Michael Angelo, so awful ugly it becomes beautiful, with its strange mouth, its deep-cut, criss-cross lines, and its doughnut complexion.

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

Walt Whitman
Such was the war. It was not a quadrille in a ballroom. Its interior history will not only never be written—its practicality, minutiae of deeds and passions, will never even be suggested.

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
I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else.

Walt Whitman
Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested, Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.

Walt Whitman
Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat; Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best; Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.

Walt Whitman
Out of the cradle endlessly rocking,
Out of the mocking-bird's throat, the musical shuttle,
Out of the Ninth-month midnight.

Walt Whitman
Those things most listened for, certainly those are the things least said.

Walt Whitman
I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regardful of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine...

Walt Whitman
Never was there, perhaps, more hollowness of heart than at present, and here in the United States. Genuine belief seems to have left us.

Walt Whitman
I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end, But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.

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

Walt Whitman
Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love; But now I think there is no unreturn'd love—the pay is certain, one way or another; (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd; Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)

Walt Whitman
It [Democracy] is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten, because that history has yet to be enacted.

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

Walt Whitman
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.

Walt Whitman
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear.

Walt Whitman
I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth.... in mine it begins to be loosened.

Walt Whitman
Where the populace rise at once against the never-ending audacity of elected persons.

Walt Whitman
Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road, Healthy, free, the world before me, The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune.

Walt Whitman
O Banner!
Not houses of peace are you, nor any nor all of their prosperity; if need be you shall have every one of those houses to destroy them;
You thought not to destroy those valuable houses, standing fast, full of comfort, built with money;
May they stand fast then? Not an hour, unless you, above them and all, stand fast.

Walt Whitman
To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachable of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art.

Walt Whitman
Now obey thy cherished secret wish,
Embrace thy friends—leave all in order;
To port and hawser's tie no more returning,
Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!

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

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

Walt Whitman
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.

Walt Whitman
Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?

Walt Whitman
Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls.

Walt Whitman