110+ Walt Whitman Quotes On Nature, Friendship And Democracy

Walt Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. He was one of the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His works include Leaves of Grass, a groundbreaking collection of poetry, and his masterpiece, Song of Myself. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Walt Whitman on love, life, nature.

Top 10 Walt Whitman Quotes

1. Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
2. Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.
3. Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul.
4. We were together. I forget the rest.
5. Be curious, not judgmental.
6. Either define the moment or the moment will define you.
7. Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
8. Simplicity is the glory of expression.
9. When one reaches out to help another he touches the face of God.
10. I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

Walt Whitman Image Quotes

Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul. — Walt Whitman

We were together. I forget the rest. — Walt Whitman

Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. — Walt Whitman

Simplicity is the glory of expression. — Walt Whitman

When one reaches out to help another he touches the face of God. — Walt Whitman

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. — Walt Whitman

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle. — Walt Whitman

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. — Walt Whitman

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself. — Walt Whitman

Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find." — Walt Whitman

Resist much, obey little. — Walt Whitman

If you done it, it ain't bragging. — Walt Whitman

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Short Quotes

• Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.
• Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
• Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
• Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
• Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."
• Dismiss whatever insults your soul.
• Resist much, obey little.
• Old age: The estuary that enlarges and spreads itself grandly as it pours into the Great Sea.
• If you done it, it ain't bragging.
• Each of us inevitable; Each of us limitless-each of us with his or her right upon the earth.

Walt Whitman Quotes About Love

O YOU whom I often and silently come where you are, that I may be with you; As I walk by your side, or sit near, or remain in the same room with you, Little you know the subtle electric fire that for your sake is playing within me. — Walt Whitman

Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem. — Walt Whitman

I give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law; Will you give me yourself? — Walt Whitman

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you/ That you may be my poem/ I whisper with my lips close to your ear/ I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you. — Walt Whitman

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 labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people. — Walt Whitman

Be not dishearten'd -- Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible. — Walt Whitman

Those who love each other shall become invincible. — Walt Whitman

Love, that is day and night - love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, no other words but words of love, no other thought but love. — Walt Whitman

I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles. — Walt Whitman

People who serve you without love get even behind your back. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Life

Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land. — Walt Whitman

NOT I - NOT ANYONE else, can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself. — Walt Whitman

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

These are the days that must happen to you. — Walt Whitman

In the faces of men and women, I see God. — Walt Whitman

Do anything, but let it produce joy. — Walt Whitman

By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught. — Walt Whitman

The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse. — Walt Whitman

Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me. — Walt Whitman

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. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Nature

The earth is rude, silent, 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. — Walt Whitman

You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things. — Walt Whitman

Give me solitude, give me Nature, give me again O Nature your primal sanities! — Walt Whitman

A perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do anything that man or woman or the natural powers can do. — Walt Whitman

A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books. — Walt Whitman

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars. — Walt Whitman

A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. — Walt Whitman

After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains. — Walt Whitman

I permit to speak at every hazard, Nature without check with original energy — Walt Whitman

Me imperturbe, standing at ease in nature. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Democracy

Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths - animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies - or it will dwindle and pale. — Walt Whitman

Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke! — Walt Whitman

I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy. — Walt Whitman

I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Writing

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

Everybody is writing, writing, writing - worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers - every damned one of us - were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work. — Walt Whitman

My little notebooks were beginnings - they were the ground into which I dropped the seed... I would work in this way when I was out in the crowds, then put the stuff together at home. — Walt Whitman

The best writing has no lace on its sleeves. — Walt Whitman

I hate commas in the wrong places. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About War

The real war will never get in the books. — Walt Whitman

Future years will never know the seething hell and the black infernal background, the countless minor scenes and interiors of the secession war; and it is best they should not. The real war will never get in the books. — Walt Whitman

I was in the midst of it all - saw war where war is worst - not on the battlefields, no - in the hospitals ... there I mixed with it: and now I say God damn the wars - allw ars: God damn every war: God damn 'em! God damn 'em! — Walt Whitman

Beautiful that war and all its deeds of carnage, must in time be utterly lost. — Walt Whitman

Strange, (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even assassination should so condense - perhaps only really lastingly condense - a Nationality. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Time

Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all. — Walt Whitman

I know I am deathless. No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before. I laugh at what you call dissolution, and I know the amplitude of time. — Walt Whitman

I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep. — Walt Whitman

Perhaps the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same - to bring people back from their present strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete. — Walt Whitman

I do not think seventy years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that seventy millions of years is the time of a man or woman, Nor that years will ever stop the existence of me, or any one else. — Walt Whitman

An electric chain seems to vibrate, as it were, between our brain and him or her preserved there [in a Daguerreotype] so well by the limner's cunning. Time, space, both are annihilated, and we identify the semblance with the reality. — Walt Whitman

Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely. — Walt Whitman

At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer or Shakspeare. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something old or odd — Walt Whitman

A word of the faith that never balks, Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, it alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder alone completes all. — Walt Whitman

I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen, And accrue what I hear into myself...and let sound contribute toward me. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Self

I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness. — Walt Whitman

O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. — Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I can bear it. — Walt Whitman

I sing the body that is electric! I celebrate the Self yet to be unveiled! — Walt Whitman

I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain'd, I stand and look at them long and long. — Walt Whitman

I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Inspiring

I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you. — Walt Whitman

Be not ashamed women, ... You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul. — Walt Whitman

Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling. — Walt Whitman

O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done. — Walt Whitman

Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything. — Walt Whitman

My words itch at your ears till you understand them — Walt Whitman

The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung. — Walt Whitman

I exist as I am, that is enough. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Death

this is thy hour o soul, thy free flight into the wordless, away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done, thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best, night, sleep, death and the stars. — Walt Whitman

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death. — Walt Whitman

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. — Walt Whitman

Do you see O my brothers and sisters? It is not chaos or death, it is form, union, plan, it is eternal life, it is happiness. — Walt Whitman

Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death. — Walt Whitman

If you want me again look for me under your boot soles. — Walt Whitman

The beautiful uncut hair of graves. — Walt Whitman

Comrades mine and I in the midst, and their memory ever to keep for the dead I loved so well. — Walt Whitman

The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it. — Walt Whitman

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." — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Beautiful

I swear to you, there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell — Walt Whitman

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. — Walt Whitman

Peace is always beautiful. — Walt Whitman

All is procession; the universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion. — Walt Whitman

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves. — Walt Whitman

What a devil art thou, Poverty! How many desires -- how many aspirations after goodness and truth -- how many noble thoughts, loving wishes toward our fellows, beautiful imaginings thou hast crushed under thy heel, without remorse or pause! — Walt Whitman

I do not doubt but the majest and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world; I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects, vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse than I have supposed. — Walt Whitman

Sex contains all, bodies, souls,Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties,delights of the earth. — Walt Whitman

It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess. — Walt Whitman

Women sit or move to and fro, some old, some young, / The young are beautiful--but the old are more beautiful than the young. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About People

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people. — Walt Whitman

There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance. — Walt Whitman

Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch. — Walt Whitman

I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game. It will take our people out-of-doors, fill them with oxygen, give them a larger physical stoicism. Tend to relieve us from being a nervous, dyspeptic set. Repair these losses, and be a blessing to us. — Walt Whitman

Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people. — Walt Whitman

Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank? — Walt Whitman

But the people are ungrammatical, untidy, and their sins gaunt and ill-bred. — Walt Whitman

In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them. — Walt Whitman

What has miserable, inefficient Mexico...to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race? — Walt Whitman

A simple separate person is not contained between his hat and his boots. — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes About Large

Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me? — Walt Whitman

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? — Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes). — Walt Whitman

The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions. — Walt Whitman

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes. — Walt Whitman

Press close bare-bosomed night -- press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds! night of the large few stars! Still nodding night! mad naked summer night. — Walt Whitman

I am large, I contain multitudes — Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Famous Quotes And Sayings

Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul. — Walt Whitman

We were together. I forget the rest. — Walt Whitman

Be curious, not judgmental. — Walt Whitman

Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes. — Walt Whitman

Simplicity is the glory of expression. — Walt Whitman

When one reaches out to help another he touches the face of God. — Walt Whitman

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. — Walt Whitman

Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road. Healthy, free, the world before me. The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose. Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune. Henceforth, I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing. — Walt Whitman

O captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weather'd every wrack The prize we sought is won The port is near, the bells I hear The people all exulting While follow eyes, the steady keel The vessel grim and daring But Heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of red Where on the deck my captain lies Fallen cold and dead. — Walt Whitman

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth. — Walt Whitman

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself. — Walt Whitman

Wisdom is not finally tested by the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof. — Walt Whitman

Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find." — Walt Whitman

Resist much, obey little. — Walt Whitman

If you done it, it ain't bragging. — Walt Whitman

Through the ample open door of the peaceful country barn, A sun-lit pasture field, with cattle and horses feeding; And haze, and vista, and the far horizon, fading away. — Walt Whitman

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard. — Walt Whitman

Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. — Walt Whitman

I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable. — Walt Whitman

Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you? — Walt Whitman

Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all. — Walt Whitman

If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred. — Walt Whitman

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines. — Walt Whitman

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women. — Walt Whitman

We convince by our presence. — Walt Whitman

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune. — Walt Whitman

And your very flesh shall be a great poem. — Walt Whitman

Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth. — Walt Whitman

I accept reality and dare not question it. — Walt Whitman

I am satisfied ... I see, dance, laugh, sing. — Walt Whitman

The future is no more uncertain than the present. — Walt Whitman

The earth does not argue, Is not pathetic, has no arrangements, Does not scream, haste, persuade, threaten, promise, Makes no discriminations, has no conceivable failures, Closes nothing, refuses nothing, shuts none out. — Walt Whitman

I will sleep no more but arise, You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms. — Walt Whitman

Thought Of equality- as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself- as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same. — Walt Whitman

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. — Walt Whitman

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough. — Walt Whitman

When I give I give myself. — Walt Whitman

I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you. — Walt Whitman

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least. — Walt Whitman

I am too not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world. — Walt Whitman

There will soon be no more priests... They may wait awhile, perhaps a generation or two, dropping off by degrees. A superior breed shall take their place. A new order shall arise and they shall be the priests of man, and every man shall be his own priest. — Walt Whitman

All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor. — Walt Whitman

The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky. — Walt Whitman

Pointing to another world will never stop vice among us; shedding light over this world can alone help us. — Walt Whitman

O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; of the endless trains of the faithless... of cities filled with the foolish; what good amid these, O me, O life? — Walt Whitman

The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on; The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat, The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, The murderous buckshot and the bullets, All these I feel or am. — Walt Whitman

The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world. — Walt Whitman

I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost . The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again. — Walt Whitman

I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person. — Walt Whitman

O joy of suffering! 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, death, face to face! To mount the scaffold! to advance to the muzzles of guns with perfect nonchalance! To be indeed a God! — Walt Whitman

The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, and the sunlight of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity-nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness. — Walt Whitman

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends. — Walt Whitman

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. One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait. — Walt Whitman

God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards. — Walt Whitman

The work for giants...to serve well the guns! — Walt Whitman

Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me. — Walt Whitman

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. — Walt Whitman

Life Lessons by Walt Whitman

1. Walt Whitman encourages us to live life to its fullest, to embrace our individuality and to appreciate the beauty of the world around us.
2. He teaches us to be open to new experiences and to stay connected to our inner selves, to our own truth.
3. He reminds us to be kind and generous to others, to be mindful of our actions and to always strive to be our best selves.