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
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Beauty, Flowers
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
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity: nothing is better than simplicity.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Letters, Simplicity
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 see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Baseball
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
Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Truth
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Sympathy
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 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
Freedom – to walk free and own no superior.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Freedom
I am an acme of things accomplished, and I am encloser of things to be.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Man
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Confidence
Produce great men, the rest follows.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Example
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
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
I accept reality and dare not question it.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Reality
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on—have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear—what remains? Nature remains.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Wilderness, Nature
Simplicity is the glory of expression.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: One liners, Simplicity, Time Management, Value of a Day
A child said, “What is the grass?” fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? … I do not know what it is any more than he.
—Walt Whitman
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 whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual – namely to You.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Self-Discovery, Humankind, Humanity
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: Character, City Life, Cities
O lands! O all so dear to me—what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.
—Walt Whitman
If you done it, it ain’t bragging.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Vanity, Conceit
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Honesty
Be curious, not judgmental.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Judgment, Judging, Judges
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Self Respect, Self-Esteem
Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
—Walt Whitman
Topics: Dying, Death
Wondering Whom to Read Next?
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James Russell Lowell American Poet, Critic
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John Jay Chapman American Writer
Herman Melville American Novelist
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