Walt Whitman Quotes

“To drive free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts, to feed the remainder of life with one hour of fullness and freedom - one brief hour of madness and joy.”

“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.”

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

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”

“The beautiful uncut hair of graves.”

“The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.”

“I dream in my dreams all the dreams of the other dreamers.And I become the other dreamers.”

“Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.”

“All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.”

“And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

“Love, that is day and night - love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, no other words but words of love, no other thought but love.”

“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.”

“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.”

“Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.”

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

“There's a man in the world who is never turned down, whatever he chances to stray; he gets the glad hand in the populous town, or out where the farmers makes hay; he's greeted with pleasure on deserts of sand, and deep in the aisles of the woods; wherever he goes there's a welcoming hand-he's the man who delivers the goods.”

“Whoever degrades another degrades me.”

“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.”

“The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections.”

“I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked.”

“From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines. Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute. Listening to others, and considering well what they say. Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating. Gently but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.”

“Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are millions of suns left, You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”

“Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that isGood steadily hastening towards immortality,And the vast all that is called Evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.”

“All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it.”