Walt Whitman Quotes

369 Sourced Quotes

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

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

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

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

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
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
The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race.

Walt Whitman
Lo! the moon ascending!
Up from the East, the silvery round moon;
Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon;
Immense and silent moon.

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

Walt Whitman
All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.

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
In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.

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
One's-Self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse.

Walt Whitman
In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.

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

Walt Whitman
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.

Walt Whitman
An individual is as superb as a nation when he has the qualities which make a superb nation.

Walt Whitman
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
Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,
We must separate awhileHere! take from my lips this kiss.
Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;
So long! And I hope we shall meet again.

Walt Whitman