Walt Whitman Quotes

“I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same; and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.”

“I think I could turn and live with the animals, they are so placid and self contained; I stand and look at them long and long. They do not sweat and whine about their condition; They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins; They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God; Not one is dissatisfied-not one is demented with the mania of owning things; Not one kneels to another, nor his kind that lived thousands of years ago; Not one is responsible or industrious over the whole earth.”

“The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it.”

“Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard.”

“I hate commas in the wrong places.”

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

“There is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth - but all is truth without exception; And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, And sing and laugh and deny nothing.”

“From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master.”

“Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep for the dead I loved so well.”

“Nothing endures but personal qualities.”

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

“As to scenery (giving my own thought and feeling), while I know the standard claim is that Yosemite, Niagara Falls, the Upper Yellowstone and the like afford the greatest natural shows, I am not so sure but the prairies and plains, while less stunning at first sight, last longer, fill the esthetic sense fuller, precede all the rest, and make North America's characteristic landscape.”

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

“Produce great men, the rest follows.”

“My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home.”

“I meet new Walt Whitmans everyday. There are a dozen of them afloat. I don't know which Walt Whitman I am.”

“Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal? Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful? Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”

“Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.”

“Books are to be called for and supplied on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but in the highest sense an exercise, a gymnastic struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself.”

“I love doctors and hate their medicine.”

“Great is Youth--equally great is Old Age--great are Day and Night.Great is Wealth--great is Poverty--great is Expression-great is Silence.”

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

“I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy.”

“...of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, the one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him. While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.”

“I sing the body electric.”