Walt Whitman Quotes

And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

I know I am deathless,
I know this orbit of mine cannot be swept by the carpenter’s compass,
I know I shall not pass like a child’s carlacue cut with a burnt stick at night.

I know I am august,
I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood,
I see that the elementary laws never apologize,
I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I plant my house by, after all.

I exist as I am — that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware, I sit content,
And if each and all be aware, I sit content.

All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all.

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!

Great is language . . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences,
It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . . and of men and women . . . . and of all qualities and processes;
It is greater than wealth . . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.

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.

With music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums,
I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for
conquer'd and slain persons.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day?
I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in
which they are won.

I beat and pound for the dead,
I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them.

The words of the true poems give you more than poems,
They give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, and everything else,
They balance the ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes,
They do not seek beauty, they are sought,
Forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick.

They prepare for death, yet they are not the finish, but rather the outset,
They bring none of his or her terminus or to be content and full,
Whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of the stars, to learn one of the meanings,
To launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings and never be quiet again.

I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

The question, O me! so sad, recurring -
What good amid these, O me, O life?
That you are here - that life
exists and identity,
that the powerful play goes on,
and you may contribute a verse.

Thought

Of obedience, faith, adhesiveness;
As I stand aloof and look there is to me something profoundly
affecting in large masses of men following the lead of those who
do not believe in men.

The clock indicates the moment...but what does eternity indicate?

O soul, thou pleasest me — I thee;
Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night,
Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing,
Bear me, indeed, as through the regions infinite,
Whose air I breathe, whose ripples hear — lave me all over;
Bathe me, O God, in thee — mounting to thee,
I and my soul to range in range of thee.

O Thou transcendent,
Nameless, the fibre and the breath.

from “Passage to India

I dote on myself...there is that lot
of me, and all so luscious.
Each moment and whatever happens
thrills me with joy.

The past and the present wilt. I have fill’d them, emptied them,
And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.