Walt Whitman Quotes

Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!

Roaming in thought over the Universe, I saw the little that is Good steadily hastening towards immortality,
And the vast that is evil I saw hastening to merge itself and become lost and dead.

Youth, large, lusty, loving—Youth, full of grace, force, fascination!
Do you know that Old Age may come after you, with equal grace, force, fascination?

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

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman.

Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.

I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me,
This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country—I now go back there,
I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn."

In the faces of men and women I see God.

I have no mockings or arguments; I witness and wait.

I loafe and invite my soul.

None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is.

I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion’s sake.

I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.

If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere — probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.