There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Youth, Professionalism
Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Gratitude, Appreciation, Blessings
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
—Walt Whitman
Topics: People
O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Travel, Tourism
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don’t believe I deserved my friends.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Enemies, Enemy, Friendship
What a devil art thou, Poverty! How many desires—how many aspirations after goodness and truth—how many noble thoughts, loving wishes toward our fellows, beautiful imaginings thou hast crushed under thy heel, without remorse or pause!
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Poverty, The Poor
The city fireman-the fire that suddenly bursts forth in the close-pack’d square,
The arriving engines, the hoarse shouts, the nimble stepping and daring,
The strong command through the fire-trumpets, the falling in line,
the rise and fall of the arms forcing the water,
The slender, spasmic, blue-white jets-the bringing to bear of the hooks and ladders, and their execution,
The crash and cut away of connecting wood-work, or through floors, if the fire smoulders under them,
The crowd with their lit faces, watching-the glare and dense shadows;….
—Walt Whitman
Behold! I do not give lectures on a little charity. When I give, I give myself.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Kindness, Giving, Service, Self-Discovery
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.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Achievements
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Gardening, Flowers
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Character
Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Power, Control, Live, Life
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Journeys, Nature, Stars
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Self-Discovery, Change, Truth
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Beauty, Flowers
What is it that you express in your eyes?
It seems to me more than all the words I have ever read.
—Walt Whitman
Unseen buds, infinite, hidden well,
Under the snow and ice, under the darkness, in every square or cubic inch,
Germinal, exquisite, in delicate lace, microscopic, unborn,
Like babies in wombs, latent, folded, compact, sleeping;
Billions of billions, and trillions of trillions of them waiting,
(On earth and in the sea—the universe—the stars there in the heavens.)
Urging slowly, surely forward, forming endless,
And waiting ever more, forever more behind.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Wilderness
I think I could turn and live with the animals. They are so placid and self-contained. They do not sweat and whine about their condition. Not one is dissatisfied. Not one is demented with the mania of owning things. Not one is disrespectful or unhappy over the world.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Wilderness, Nature
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Self-Esteem, Self Respect
We convince by our presence.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: The Present, Present
And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, and I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn’d to beautiful results, and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, and I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, and that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.
—Walt Whitman
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Confidence
I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes—but is that all?
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Universe
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Democracy
I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Awareness, Realization, Mindfulness, Acceptance
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
Topics: Death
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
—Walt Whitman
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Miracles
It is only the novice in political economy who thinks it is the duty of government to make its citizens happy. Government has no such office. To protect the weak and the minority from the impositions of the strong and the majorityto prevent any one from positively working to render the people unhappy, to do the labor not of an officious inter-meddler in the affairs of men, but of a prudent watchman who prevents outragethese are rather the proper duties of a government. Under the specious pretext of effecting the happiness of the whole community, nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government have been carried through. The legislature may, and should, when such things fall in its way, lend its potential weight to the cause of virtue and happinessbut to legislate in direct behalf of those objects is never available, and rarely effects any even temporary benefit.
—Walt Whitman
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
- Ralph Waldo Emerson American Philosopher
- Henry David Thoreau American Philosopher
- Edna St. Vincent Millay American Poet
- Gore Vidal American Novelist
- James Russell Lowell American Poet, Critic
- Christopher Morley American Novelist, Essayist
- Natalie Clifford Barney American Literary Figure
- John Jay Chapman American Writer
- Herman Melville American Novelist
- Gertrude Stein American Writer
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