Walt Whitman Quotes

369 Sourced Quotes

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

Walt Whitman
The Real War Will Never Get in the Books. And so good-bye to the war.

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
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
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
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
Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.

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

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
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
The dirtiest book in all the world is the expurgated book.

Walt Whitman
We consider bibles and religions divine I do not say they are not divine. I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still. It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life.

Walt Whitman
Europe's old dynastic slaughterhouse (Area of murder-plots of thrones, with scent yet left of wars and scaffolds everywhere).

Walt Whitman
The horizon's edge, the flying sea-crow, the fragrance of salt marsh and shore mud, These became part of that child who went forth every day, and who now goes, and will always go forth every day.

Walt Whitman
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you, To which I sign my name.

Walt Whitman
This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the 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.

Walt Whitman
Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death, it is form, union, plan, it is eternal life, it is happiness.

Walt Whitman
A perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do anything that man or woman or the natural powers can do.

Walt Whitman
Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding; And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away.

Walt Whitman
Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet, Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome?

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

Walt Whitman
Each belongs here or anywhere as much as the well off…just as much as you or I. Each has his or her place in the procession.

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

Walt Whitman
I like the scientific spirit-the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine-it always keeps the way beyond open.

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.

Walt Whitman