Walt Whitman Quotes

“Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains misty-topt!Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich apple-blossomed earth!Smile, for your lover comes!”

“Either define the moment or the moment will define you.”

“When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd / And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, / I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.”

“I inhale great draught of space...the east and west are mine...and the north and south are mine...I am grandeur than I thought...I did not know i held so much goodness.”

“A woman waits for me, she contains all, nothing lacking.”

“People who serve you without love get even behind your back.”

“To behold the day-break!The little light fades the immense and diaphanous shadows,The air tastes good to my palate.”

“Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?”

“There's no doubt that I've deserved my enemies, but I don't think I've deserved my friends.”

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

“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!”

“By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught.”

“O captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weather'd every wrack The prize we sought is won The port is near, the bells I hear The people all exulting While follow eyes, the steady keel The vessel grim and daring But Heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red Where on the deck my captain lies Fallen cold and dead.”

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

“I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, All all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems. Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward.”

“The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? That you are here - that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”

“The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.”

“There was never any more inception than there is now,Nor any more youth or age than there is now;And will never be any more perfection than there is now,Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”

“My rule has been, so far as I could have any rule (I could have no cast-iron rule) - my rule has been, to write what I have to say the best way I can - then lay it aside - taking it up again after some time and reading it afresh - the mind new to it. If there's no jar in the new reading, well and good - that's sufficient for me.”

“Come lovely and soothing death, Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving, In the day, in the night, to all, to each, Sooner or later, delicate death.”

“It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess.”

“You want to know a sure way to lose money? Buy what's popular and don't know what you are investing in.”

“The President eats dirt and excrement for his daily meals, likes it and tries to force it on The States.”

“O lands! O all so dear to me - what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.”

“Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths - animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies - or it will dwindle and pale.”