Quotes from Walt Whitman

Finding my occupation, poverty, notoriety, foibles, crimes, less       important than I thought

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 me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,   For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet       needed most, I bring,   Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,   The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,   A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect,   But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.

No specification is necessary—to add or subtract or divide is in vain. Little or big, learned or unlearned, white or black, legal or illegal, sick or well, from the first inspiration down the windpipe to the last expiration out of it, all that a male or female does that is vigorous and benevolent and clean is so much sure profit to him or her in the unshakable order of the universe and through the whole scope of it for ever.

All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it; Did you think it was in the white or gray stone? or the lines of the arches and cornices?

This is no book; Who touches this, touches a man; (Is it night? Are we here alone?) It is I you hold, and who holds you; I spring from the pages into your arms...

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

Soothe! soothe! soothe! Close on its wave soothes the wave behind, And again another behind embracing and lapping, every one close, But my love soothes not me, not me. -from Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking

O I see life is not short but immeasurably long -from Myself and Mine

No es la vida el desperdicio de muertes infinitas?

I do not call one greater and one smaller, that which fills it period and place is equal to any.

Por qué voy a empeñarme en que Dios sea otra cosa mejor que este día? En cada hora hay algo de dios y en cada minuto también.

In all people I see myself, none more and not one a barley-corn less, And the good or bad I say of myself I say of them.

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?

I swear I see what is better than to tell the best, It is always to leave the best untold. -from A Song of the Rolling Earth

I do not call one greater and one smaller, That which fills its period and place is equal to any.

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

Más allá de mis ojos está el espacio sin límites y más allá de mis números está el tiempo sin ritmo: Dios.

You air that serves me with breath to speak! You objects that call from diffusion my meanings and give them shape! You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers! You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides! I believe you are latent with unseen existences, you are so dear to me.

The land and sea, the animals, fishes, and birds, the sky of heaven and the orbs, the forests, mountains, and rivers, are not small themes … but folks expect of the poet to indicate more than the beauty and dignity which always attach to dumb real objects … they expect him to indicate the path between reality and their souls.

El reloj marca los minutos… pero ¿y la eternidad? ¿Qué marca la eternidad?

The poet] is no arguer . . . he is judgment. He judges not as the judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.

I will make the poems of materials, for I think they are to be the most         spiritual poems; And I will make the poems of my body and of mortality, For I think I shall then supply myself with the poems of my soul, and of         immortality.