Quotes from Walt Whitman

And these things I see suddenly, what mean they? As if some miracle, some hand divine unseal'd my eyes, Shadowy vast shapes smile through the air and sky, And on the distant waves sail countless ships, And anthems in new tongues I hear saluting me.

To a Certain Cantatrice     Here, take this gift,   I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general,   One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the       progress and freedom of the race,   Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel;   But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.

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

What living and buried speech is vibrating here... what howls restrained by decorum...

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

To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do. Me imperturbe

We carry our fresh air with us, wherever we go. He who has it, has it anywhere—nothing can rob him of it. I find in all characters that live close to nature, capriciousness, variability—they seem to pattern after nature's higher rules. The children are that way, and dogs, cats—not but that their perceptions, intuitions, are keen enough, but with the capricious, too.

The law of the past can't be eluded, The law of the present and future cannot be eluded, The law of the living cannot be eluded

Terrible in beauty, age, and power, The genius of poets of old lands, As to me directing like flame its eyes, With finger pointing to many immortal songs, And menacing voice, What singest thou? it said, Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards?

The tones of unseen mystery, the vague and vast suggestions of the briny world, the liquid-flowing syllables, The perfume, the faint creaking of the cordage, the melancholy rhythm, The boundless vista and the horizon far and dim are all here, And this is ocean's poem.

Was somebody asking to see the soul?

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.

Here are the roughs and beards and space and ruggedness and nonchalance that the soul loves. Here the performance disdaining the trivial unapproached

A mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

they may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds and along the landscape and flowing currents.

In the swamp, in secluded recesses, A shy and hidden bird is warbling a song. Solitary, the thrush, The hermit, withdrawn to himself, avoiding the settlements, Sings by himself a song.

gently turned over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my barestript heart

Nunca hubo más comienzo que ahora, ni más juventud o vejez que hay ahora; y nunca habrá más perfección que hay ahora, ni más cielo ni infierno que hay ahora.

The narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery.

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, and the stars. ? Walt Whitman, "A Clear Midnight," in the section From Noon to Starry Night in the seventh edition of Leaves of Grass (1881)

I stop somewhere, waiting for you.

If you want to know where your heart is, look to where your mind goes when it wanders.

The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.

Omar Khayyam:     I sent my soul through the Invisible,       Some letter of that after-life to spell,     And by-and-by my soul return'd to me,       And answer'd, I myself am Heaven and Hell.