Walt Whitman Speaks Quotes

“It is almost incredible what a little stretch of nature will do to arouse a fellow—convert him, so to speak. I cannot think of a rarer experience than one I met on the river Saguenay, up there in Canada. The river’s water is an inky black—a curious study, I believe, to this day to the scientific men: take it up in a bucket, and it is still unmistakably black—the color of the stream. Oh! that great day! Down the stream a boat—sails open—wing-a-wing—one one side, one the other—patched, stained, heavy—but oh! how beautiful! It was a curious revelation out of little means. Wing-a-wing is rarely fine anyhow—I have not known it much in pictures—but few artists can accomplish it. See then, the large result of what may seem a small impulse. Why should we go hunt beauty then—I should rather ask—where can you go to get away from it?”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“Have you ever thought how much is in the negative quality of nature—the negative—the simply loafing, doing nothing, worrying about nothing, living out of doors and getting fresh air, plenty of sleep—letting everything else take care of itself?”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“Do you know much about Aaron Burr? There's a man, now, who is only damned and damned again in history and yet who had his parts. I have always designed writing something about him to show I did not stand in the jam of his vilifiers. I had a piece on him which should have gone into this book. You don't know (I guess I never told you) that when I was a lad, working in a lawyer's office, it fell to me to go over the river now and then with messages for Burr. Burr was very gentle--persuasive. He had a way of giving me a bit of fruit on these visits--an apple or a pear. I can see him clearly, still--his stateliness, gray hair, courtesy, consideration.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“I should like to know, what is life?
Yes indeed—what is life? There’s something in the human critter which only needs to be nudged to reveal itself: something inestimably eloquent, precious: not always observed: it is a folded leaf: not absent because we fail to see it: the right man comes—the right hour; the leaf is lifted. The largest part of our human tragedies are humanly avoidable: they come from greed, from carelessness, from causes not catastrophic, elemental: with more radical good heart most of our woes would disappear.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“We seem afraid of the natural forces. John Burroughs puts it well, says, if the American is only dry, he is not content to take a drink of pure cold water, but must put sugar into it, or a flavor. To me, these things—the things of which these are the type—are the prominent dangers in the future of our America. The exhilaration of such freedom—the going and coming—the being master of yourself and of the road! No one who is not a walker can begin to know it! Oh! the long, long walks, way into the nights!—in the after hours—sometimes lasting till two or three in the morning! The air, the stars, the moon, the water—what a fullness of inspiration they imparted!—what exhilaration! And there were the detours, too—wanderings off into the country out of the beaten path: I remember one place in Maryland in particular to which we would go. How splendid, above all, was the moon—the full moon, the half moon: and then the wonder, the delight, of the silences.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“We carry our fresh air with us, wherever we go. He who has it, has it anywhere—nothing can rob him of it. I find in all characters that live close to nature, capriciousness, variability—they seem to pattern after nature’s higher rules. The children are that way, and dogs, cats—not but that their perceptions, intuitions, are keen enough, but with the capricious, too.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“America must welcome all---Chinese, Irish, German, pauper or not, criminal or not---all, all, without exceptions: become an asylum for all who choose to come. We may have drifted away from this principle temporarily but time will bring us back. … America is not for special types, for the caste, but for the great mass of people---the vast, surging, hopeful, army of workers. Dare we deny them a home---close the doors in their face----take possession of all and fence it in and then sit down satisfied with our system---convinced that we have solved our problem? I for my part refuse to connect America with such a failure---such a tragedy, for tragedy it would be.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“I used to thrust papers, things, into my pockets: always had a lot of reading matter about my person somewhere: on ferries, cars, anywhere, I would read, read, read: it’s a good habit to get into: have you ever noticed how most people absolutely waste most all their spare time?”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“I don’t seem to have any advice to give, except perhaps this: Be natural, be natural, be natural! Be a damned fool, be wise if you must (can’t help it), be anything—only be natural! Almost any writer who is willing to be himself will amount to something—because we all amount to something, to about the same thing, at the roots. The trouble mostly is that writers become writers and cease to be men: writers reflect writers, writers again reflect writers, until the man is worn thin—worn through.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“Restrict nothing--keep everything open: to Italy, to China, to anybody. I love America, I believe in America, because her belly can hold and digest all--anarchist, socialist, peacemakers, fighters, disturbers or degenerates of whatever sort--hold and digest all. If I felt that America could not do this I would be indifferent as between our institutions and any others. America is not all in all--the sum total: she is only to contribute her contribution to the big scheme. What shall that contribution be? I say, let it be something worth while--something exceptional, ennobling.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“America means above all toleration, catholicity, welcome, freedom--a concern for Europe, for Asia, for Africa, along with its concern for America. It is something quite peculiar, hardly to be stated--evades you as the air--yet is a fact everywhere preciously present.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“In politics--just as it is in religion--some people get an idea of the necessity of believing certain things, not so much from weight of evidence, out or in,--but from mere mental and emotional set-ness: they intend believing--and that [is] all there is about it!”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“America has its purpose: it must serve that purpose to the end: I look upon the future as certain: our people will in the end read all these lessons right: America will stand opposed to everything which means restriction--stand against all policies of exclusion: accept Irish, Chinese--knowing it must not question the logic of its hospitality.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“It is with America as it is with nature: I believe our institutions can digest, absorb, all elements, good and bad, godlike or devilish, that come along: it seems impossible for nature to fail to make good in the processes peculiar to her: in the same way it is impossible for America to fail to turn the worst luck into best--curses into blessings.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“If America is not for freedom I do not see what it is for.”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“I used to thrust papers, things, into my pockets: always had a lot of reading matter about my person somewhere: on ferries, cars, anywhere, I would read, read, read: it's a good habit to get into: have you ever noticed how most people absolutely waste most all their spare time?”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication

“It does a man good to turn himself inside out once in a while: to sort of turn the tables on himself: to look at himself through other eyes -- especially skeptical eyes, if he can. It takes a good deal of resolution to do it: yet it should be done -- no one is safe until he can give himself such a drubbing: until he can shock himself out of his complacency. Think how we go on believing in ourselves--which in the main is all right (what could we ever do if we didn't believe in ourselves?): but if we don't look out we develop a bumptious bigotry--a colossal self-satisfaction, which is worse for a man than being a damned scoundrel”
― Walt Whitman, Walt Whitman Speaks: His Final Thoughts on Life, Writing, Spirituality, and the Promise of America: A Library of America Special Publication