Walt Whitman Quotes

I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused, flowing, sounds of the city, sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night.

"Allons! whoever you are come travel with me!
Traveling with me you find what never tires.

The earth never tires,
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first, Nature is rude and incomprehensible at first,
Be not discouraged, keep on, there are divine things well envelop’d,
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.

Allons! we must not stop here,
However sweet these laid-up stores, however convenient this dwelling we cannot remain here,
However shelter’d this port and however calm these waters we must not anchor here,
However welcome the hospitality that surrounds us we are permitted to receive it but a little while."

-from "Song of the Open Road"

Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.

When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with such applause in the lecture room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

These are the thoughts of all men in all ages and
lands, they are
not original with me,
If they are not yours as much as mine they are nothing
or next to
nothing,
If they do not enclose everything they are next to
nothing,
If they are not the riddle and the untying of the
riddle they are
nothing,
If they are not just as close as they are distant they
are nothing.
This is the grass that grows wherever the land is and
the water is,
This is the common air that bathes the globe.
This is the breath of laws and songs and behaviour,
This is the tasteless water of souls.... this is the true
sustenance,
It is for the illiterate.... it is for the judges of the supreme
court . . . . it is for the federal capitol and the state
capitols,
It is for the admirable communes of literary men
and composers
and singers and lecturers and engineers and savans,
It is for the endless races of working people and
farmers and
seamen.
This is the trill of a thousand clear cornets and
scream of the octave flute and strike of triangles.
I play not a march for victors only.... I play great
marches for conquered 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.

Over all the sky—the sky! far, far out of reach, studded with the eternal stars.

Resist much.

We see, as in the universes of the material kosmos, after meteorological, vegetable, and animal cycles, man at last arises, born through them, to prove them, concentrate them, to turn upon them with wonder and love — to command them, adorn them, and carry them upward into superior realms — so, out of the series of the preceding social and political universes, now arise these States. We see that while many were supposing things established and completed, really the grandest things always remain; and discover that the work of the New World is not ended, but only fairly begun

I visit the orchards of God and look at the spheric product
And look at quintillions ripened, and look at quintillions green.

The greatest poet hardly knows pettiness or triviality. If he breathes into any thing that was before thought small it dilates with the grandeur and life of the universe. He is a seer ... he is individual... he is complete in himself... the others are as good as he, only he sees it and they do not.

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

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.

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.

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

poor boy! I never knew you, Yet I think I could not refuse this moment to die for you, if that would save you