Quotes by Walt Whitman
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
I accept reality and dare not question it.
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin, and even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.
When I give I give myself.
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.
Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
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!
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.
Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Camerado, I give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself?
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.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
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.
Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
I celebrate myself, and what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass.
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?
The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.
I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.
