Walt Whitman

Poet

1819-05-31 – 1892-03-26

Walt Whitman was an American poet and essayist best known for Leaves of Grass. His free-verse style and expansive voice reshaped modern poetry in English.

Quotes by Walt Whitman

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
Read quote
God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.
Read quote
To drive free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts. One brief house of madness and joy!
Read quote
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough
Read quote
Song of myselfNow I will do nothing but listen, To accrue what I hear into this song, to let sounds contribute toward it. I hear bravuras of birds, bustle of growing wheat, gossip of flames, clack of sticks cooking my meals, I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused or following, Sounds of the city and sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night, Talkative young ones to those that like them, the loud laugh of work-people at their meals, The angry base of disjointed friendship, the faint tones of the sick, The judge with hands tight to the desk, his pallid lips pronouncing a death-sentence, The heave'e'yo of stevedores unlading ships by the wharves, the refrain of the anchor-lifters, The ring of alarm-bells, the cry of fire, the whirr of swift-streaking engines and hose-carts with premonitory tinkles and color'd lights, The steam-whistle, the solid roll of the train of approaching cars, The slow march play'd at the head of the association marching two and two, (They go to guard some corpse, the flag-tops are draped with black muslin.) I hear the violoncello, ('tis the young man's heart's complaint,) I hear the key'd cornet, it glides quickly in through my ears, It shakes mad-sweet pangs through my belly and breast. I hear the chorus, it is a grand opera, Ah this indeed is music--this suits me.
Read quote
Song of myselfWith music strong I come, with my cornets and my drums, I play not marches for accepted victors only, I play marches for conquer'd 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. I beat and pound for the dead, I blow through my embouchures my loudest and gayest for them. Vivas to those who have fail'd! And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea! And to those themselves who sank in the sea! And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes! And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!
Read quote
Come, said my SoulSuch verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)That should I after death invisibly return,Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,There to some group of mates the chants resuming,(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)Ever with pleas'd smiles I may keep on,Ever and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and now,Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,
Read quote
When the full-grown poet came,Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, Nay, he is mine alone;— Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each by the hand;And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,And wholly and joyously blends them.
Read quote
I do not snivel that snivel the world over,That months are vacuums and the ground but wallow and filth,That life is a suck and a sell, and nothing remains at the end but threadbare crape and tears.
Read quote
Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.
Read quote
The last scud of day holds back for me, It flings my likeness after the rest and true as any on the shadow'd wilds, It coaxes me to the vapor and the dusk.I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runaway sun, I effuse my flesh in eddies, and drift it in lacy jags.I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love, If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to your nevertheless,And filter and fibre your blood.Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,Missing me one place, search another,I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Read quote
Songs of myselfI am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,..
Read quote
Have you reckon'd a thousand acres much? have you reckon'd the earth much? Have you practis'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,) You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.
Read quote
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.
Read quote
Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
Read quote
not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,The hundred & fifty are dumb yet at Alamo.
Read quote
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.
Read quote
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
Read quote
O the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning!It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,I will have thousands of globes and all time.
Read quote
Song of myselfA 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. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation.
Read quote