Poems by Walt Whitman Quotes

“All beauty comes from beautiful blood and a beautiful brain.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“I CANNOT tell you now;
When the wind's drive and whirl
Blow me along no longer,
And the wind's a whisper at last--
Maybe I'll tell you then--
some other time.

When the rose's flash to the sunset
Reels to the rack and the twist,
And the rose is a red bygone,
When the face I love is going
And the gate to the end shall clang,
And it's no use to beckon or say, "So long"--
Maybe I'll tell you then--
some other time.

I never knew any more beautiful than you:
I have hunted you under my thoughts,
I have broken down under the wind
And into the roses looking for you.
I shall never find any
greater than you.”
― Carl Sandburg, Poems

“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 labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards 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,”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself, and makes one.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“For who but I should understand love, with all its sorrow and joy?”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“It is that something in the soul which says,—Rage on, whirl on, I tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of all terror and all pain.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as         profound as any.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Human bodies are words, myriads of words; In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped,         natural, gay;”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by 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 labour to others,”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem. In the history of the earth hitherto the largest and most stirring appear tame and orderly to their ampler largeness and stir. Here at last is something in the doings of man that corresponds with the broadcast doings of the day and night. Here is not merely a nation, but a teeming nation of nations. Here is action untied from strings, necessarily blind to particulars and details, magnificently moving in vast masses.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Whitman's poems present no trace of rhyme, save in a couple or so of chance instances. Parts of them, indeed, may be regarded as a warp of prose amid the weft of poetry,”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“CENTURIES HENCE. Full of life now, compact, visible,
I, forty years old the eighty-third year of the States,
To one a century hence, or any number of centuries hence,
To you, yet unborn, these seeking you.
When you read these, I, that was visible, am become invisible;
Now it is you, compact, visible, realising my poems, seeking me;
Fancying how happy you were, if I could be with you, and become your loving
        comrade;
Be it as if I were with you. Be not too certain but I am now with you.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Something long preparing and formless is arrived and formed in you,
You are henceforth secure, whatever comes or goes.
The threads that were spun are gathered, the weft crosses the warp, the
pattern is systematic.
The preparations have every one been justified, The orchestra have sufficiently tuned their instruments—the baton has given the signal. The guest that was coming—he waited long, for reasons—he is now housed; He is one of those who are beautiful and happy—he is one of those that to look upon and be with is enough.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by 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 labour to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards 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, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Like a stone dropped into a pond, an article of that sort may spread out its concentric circles of consequences.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“As for me, (torn, stormy, even as I, amid these vehement days;) I have the idea of all, and am all, and believe in all; I believe materialism is true, and spiritualism is true—I reject no part. Have I forgotten any part? Come to me, whoever and whatever, till I give you recognition. I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews; I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demi-god; I see that the old accounts, bibles, genealogies, are true, without         exception;”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“If he breathes into anything that was before thought small, it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“What do you seek, so pensive and silent? What do you need, Camerado? Dear son! do you think it is love? Listen, dear son—listen, America, daughter or son! It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess—and yet it satisfies—it is great; But there is something else very great—it makes the whole coincide; It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and provides for all.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most         spiritual poems; And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul, and of         immortality.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“No specification is necessary—to add or subtract or divide is in vain. Little or big, learned or unlearned, white or black, legal or illegal, sick or well, from the first inspiration down the windpipe to the last expiration out of it, all that a male or female does that is vigorous and benevolent and clean is so much sure profit to him or her in the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope of it for ever.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Caution seldom goes far enough.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present—and can be         none in the future; And I will show that, whatever happens to anybody, it may be turned to beautiful results—and I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful         than death; And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are         compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as         profound as any. I will not make poems with reference to parts; But I will make leaves, poems, poemets, songs, says, thoughts, with         reference to ensemble: And I will not sing with reference to a day, but with reference to all         days; And I will not make a poem, nor the least part of a poem, but has reference         to the soul; Because, having looked at the objects of the universe, I find there is no         one, nor any particle of one, but has reference to the soul.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“That such a view of the matter is entitled to a great deal of weight, and at any rate to candid consideration and construction, appears to me not to admit of a doubt: neither is it dubious that the contrary view, the only view which a mealy-mouthed British nineteenth century admits as endurable, amounts to the condemnation of nearly every great or eminent literary work of past time, whatever the century it belongs to, the country it comes from, the department of writing it illustrates, or the degree or sort of merit it possesses.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Walt Whitman was born at the farm-village of West Hills, Long Island, in the State of New York, and about thirty miles distant from the capital, on the 31st of May 1819.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“Another most prominent and pervading quality of the book is the exuberant physique of the author. The conceptions are throughout those of a man in robust health, and might alter much under different conditions.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman

“The book, then, taken as a whole, is the poem both of Personality and of Democracy; and, it may be added, of American nationalism. It is par excellence the modern poem. It is distinguished also by this peculiarity— that in it the most literal view of things is continually merging into the most rhapsodic or passionately abstract.”
― Walt Whitman, Poems by Walt Whitman