The Complete Walt Whitman Quotes

“I exist as I am, that is enough,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men—go freely with powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and with the mothers of families—re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body. The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is already plough'd and manured; others may not know it, but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches—and shall master all attachment.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Works of Walt Whitman: Leaves Of Grass, Drum-Taps, The Patriotic Poems, The Wound Dresser and More

“O to struggle against great odds, to meet enemies undaunted! To be entirely alone with them, to find how much one can stand! To look strife, torture, prison, popular odium, face to face! To mount the scaffold, to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God!”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Life breaks into beauty again and we realize that man may bring hell itself into the world, but that Nature ever patiently waits to be his natural paradise.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“am integral with you, I too am of one phase and of all phases.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“All truths wait in all things,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Hurrah for positive science! long live exact demonstration!”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I accept Reality and dare not question it, Materialism first and last imbuing.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“What is a man anyhow? what am I? what are you?”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I am enamour'd of growing out-doors, Of men that live among cattle or taste of the ocean or woods,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Although this poetry collection was first published in 1855, when Whitman was 36 years old, the poet spent his whole life revising the poems in several editions.”
― Walt Whitman, Complete Works of Walt Whitman

“O to have 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, The Complete Walt Whitman

“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body —”
― Walt Whitman, Complete Works of Walt Whitman

“Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have long enough stifled and choked; Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not, I will say what I have to say by itself, I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a call only their call, I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States, I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will through the States,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“The youth lies awake in the cedar-roof'd garret and harks to the musical rain,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I am more resolute because all have denied me than I could ever have been had all accepted me, I heed not and have never heeded either experience, cautions, majorities, nor ridicule,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul,”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“(Were you looking to be held together by lawyers? Or by an agreement on a paper? or by arms? Nay, nor the world, nor any living thing, will so cohere.)”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“But I am not the sea nor the red sun, I am not the wind with girlish laughter, Not the immense wind which strengthens, not the wind which lashes, Not the spirit that ever lashes its own body to terror and death, But I am that which unseen comes and sings, sings, sings, Which babbles in brooks and scoots in showers on the land, Which the birds know in the woods mornings and evenings, And the shore-sands know and the hissing wave, and that banner and pennant, Aloft there flapping and flapping.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Dark mother always gliding near with soft feet Have none chanted for thee a chant of fullest welcome? Then I chant it for thee, I glorify thee above all, I bring thee a song that when thou must indeed come, come unfalteringly.”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman

“Death and immortality were but two aspects of the same blessed hope to this man, who poured out his life in a turgid fount of ecstatic joy in living:”
― Walt Whitman, The Complete Walt Whitman