Walt Whitman Quotes

When I give, I give myself

The cleanest expression is that which finds no sphere worthy of itself, and makes one.

Mikor e kései órán a szürkületben egyedül üldögélek s az égő tölgy lángja lobog,
Régmúlt háborús jeleneteken elmélkedem – számtalan, eltemetett ismeretlen katonán,
Az üres neveken, olyanokon, melyeket nem írtak sem égre, sem tengerre, a vissza-nem-térteken,
A csata utáni kurta békén, zord, hantoló osztagokon,
Egész Amerikából, Északról, Délről, Keletről, Nyugatról, ahonnan jöttek, mély árkokba összegyűjtött halottakon:
Az erdős Maine-en, Új Anglia farmjain, a termékeny Pennsylvanián, Illinoison, Ohion,
A mérhetetlen Nyugaton, Virginián, Délen, Carolinákon, Texason,
(Még itt is, szobám árnyékaiban és homályos fényei közt, a halk, lobogó lángokban,
Ismét látom a délceg, bátran támadó sorokat, amint felmagasodnak – hallom a hadseregek ritmikus menetét;)
Nektek énekelem most ezt a dalt, mindnyájatoknak – ti meg-nem-örökített nevek – a háború sötét hagyatéka,
Villanjon fel ebben a dalban a régen elhanyagolt kötelesség – bennem összegyűlt misztikus névsorotok,
Minden nevet felidézek a sötétségből és a halottak hamvaiból,
Mélyen a szívembe véslek ezentúl benneteket, hogy sokáig emlékezzem,
A ti ismeretlen neveitek misztikus soraira, akár Északról, akár Délről jöttetek,
E szürkületi dalban éltek ti tovább, szeretettel bebalzsamozva.

I loafe and invite my soul.

We feel the long pulsation, ebb and flow of endless motion, The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, And this is ocean’s poem.

I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!" He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise,
Regardless of others, ever regardful of others,
Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man,
Stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine, one of the nation, of many nations, the smallest the same and the the largest

Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much?
Have you practis'd so long to learn to read?
Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems,

The real war will never get in the books.

Great is life...and real and mystical...wherever and whoever, Great is death...Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together; Sure as the stars return again after they merge on the light, death is as great as life.

To a Certain Cantatrice Here, take this gift, I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.

I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower.

"I swear I see what is better than to tell the best,
It is always to leave the best untold."

-from "A Song of the Rolling Earth"

what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.