Inspirational Quotations

Inspirational Quotes by Walt Whitman (American Poet)

Walt Whitman (1819–92) was an American poet who pioneered a distinctive open poetic form and an overpowering voice that shaped 20th century-American poetry.

Whitman was born on Long Island, New York. His father was a farmer and carpenter. When Walter was four, his family moved to adjacent Brooklyn, then a small city. He embraced the city and the country equally. Whitman worked as a journalist in Brooklyn and often rambled around the streets of New York people-watching and searching for story ideas.

Whitman started writing poetry when America went into the Civil War. He self-published Leaves of Grass (1855) and arranged for it to be sold in different formats, at different prices, to reach as broad an audience as possible. His original form, subject, and overt sensuality received widespread disparagement in the conservative society of his day. Despite his best efforts, Whitman sold only ten copies of the first edition and gave away the rest. He sent out copies to several prominent writers and critics. Only a few answered him; Ralph Waldo Emerson responded positively and said, “I greet you at the beginning of a great career.”

For the rest of his life, Whitman expanded and revised the poems in Leaves of Grass. The verses that ultimately made him a literary celebrity were the poems he composed on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, “Oh Captain My Captain” and “When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom’d.”

The nine editions of Leaves of Grass form a single all-encompassing epic poetic sequence. In it, Whitman embraced a range of sentiments—concerning optimism of America’s prospects to an increasing tragic tone about the Civil War.

More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Walt Whitman

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: Tourism, Travel

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 to his kind that lived thousands of years ago.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Animals

The moon gives you light,
And the bugles and the drums give you music,
And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans,
My heart gives you love.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: The Military

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Independence

Let that which stood in front go behind, let that which was behind advance to the front, let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, let the old propositions be postponed.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Change

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

Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Speech, Conversation

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

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Journeys, Stars, Nature

I never could explain why I love anybody, or anything.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Love

I am an acme of things accomplished, and I am encloser of things to be.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Man

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Age, Old Age, Aging

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: Mindfulness, Awareness, Realization, Acceptance

Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give, I give myself.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Giving, Sacrifice, Charity

Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature

Have you learned lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who rejected you, and braced themselves against you, or disputed the passage with you?
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Learning, Opposition

I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God – I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
—Walt Whitman

I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Parties

There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Professionalism, Youth

Behold! I do not give lectures on a little charity. When I give, I give myself.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Giving, Service, Kindness, Self-Discovery

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: Nature, Wilderness

Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.
—Walt Whitman

The future is no more uncertain than the present.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Doubt, Uncertainty

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with such applause in the lecture room, how soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick; Till rising and gliding out, I wandered off by myself, in the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, looked up in perfect silence at the stars.
—Walt Whitman

I am large; I contain multitudes.
—Walt Whitman

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Losing, Losers

Simplicity is the glory of expression.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: One liners, Time Management, Simplicity, Value of a Day

There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Education

I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself … , I see the elementary laws never apologize.
—Walt Whitman

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

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