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.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Night
We convince by our presence.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Present, The Present
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Self Respect, Self-Esteem
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Sympathy
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Independence
As for me, I know nothing else but miracles, Whether I walk the streets of Manhattan, Or dart my sight over the roofs of houses toward the sky, Or wade with naked feet along the beach just in the edge of the water, Or stand under the trees in the woods, Or talk by day with any one I love, Or sleep in bed at night with any one I love, Or watch honey bees busy around the hive of a summer forenoon… Or the wonderfulness of the sundown, Or of stars shining so quiet and bright, Or the exquisite delicate thin curve of the new moon in spring… What stranger miracles are there?
—Walt Whitman
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
I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the The Past triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.
—Walt Whitman
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I contradict myself. (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Truth, Self-Discovery, Change
The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: City Life, Cities, Character
To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Manners
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Argument
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Books, Reading, Literature
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
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: Opposition, Learning
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties,
delights of the earth.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Sex
To me every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Miracles, Optimism
Be curious, not judgmental.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Judges, Judging, Judgment
O to have my life henceforth a poem of new joys!
To dance, clap hands, exult, shout, skip, leap, roll on, float on,
To be a sailor of the world, bound for all ports,
A ship itself, (see indeed these sails I spread to the sun and air,)
A swift and swelling ship, full of rich words—full of joys.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Living
Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Reading, Literature, Books
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: Conversation, Speech
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
At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer or Shakespeare. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something old or odd.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Poetry
Their manners, speech, dress, friendships,—the freshness and candor of their physiognomy—the picturesque looseness of their carriage—their deathless attachment to freedom—their aversion to anything indecorous or soft or mean—the practical acknowledgment of the citizens of one state by the citizens of all other states—the fierceness of their roused resentment—their curiosity and welcome of novelty—their self-esteem and wonderful sympathy—their susceptibility to a slight—the air they have of persons who never knew how it felt to stand in the presence of superiors—the fluency of their speech—their delight in music, a sure symptom of manly tenderness and native elegance of soul—their good temper and open-handedness—the terrible significance of their elections, the President’s taking off his hat to them, not they to him—these too are unrhymed poetry. It awaits the gigantic and generous treatment worthy of it.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: America
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Flowers, Gardening
There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Tyranny
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
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
I cannot too often repeat that Democracy is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Democracy
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Confidence
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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