Walt Whitman Quotes

But a cluster containing night's darkness and blood-dripping wounds, And psalms of the dead.

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.

Not one is dissatisfied . . . . not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not

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

To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand,

I am exact and merciless but I love you.

Speech is the twin of my vision . . . . it is unequal to measure itself.

Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

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;

Come I am determin'd to unbare this broad breast of mine, I have long enough stifled and choked; Emblematic and capricious blades I leave you, now you serve me not, I will say what I have to say by itself, I will sound myself and comrades only, I will never again utter a call only their call, I will raise with it immortal reverberations through the States, I will give an example to lovers to take permanent shape and will through the States,

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient,
It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.

What ever satisfies the soul is truth.

All I mark as my own you shall offset it with your own,
Else it were time lost listening to me.

I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.

I am large ,I contain multitudes