Walt Whitman Quotes

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

Be curious, not judgmental.

We convince by our presence.

I tramp a perpetual journey.

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.

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

When I give I give myself.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

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

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

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

Resist much, obey little.

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

I accept reality and dare not question it.

Be curious, bot judgmental.

Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.

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

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.

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

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

If you done it, it ain't bragging.

If you done it, it aint bragging.

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

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

I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.

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.

Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior.

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.

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

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!

I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.

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

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

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

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

O lands! O all so dear to me -- what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.

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

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.

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

The real war will never get in the books.

This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.

I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?

To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

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.

Resist much, obey little.

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.

There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint.

The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.

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