Quotes from Walt Whitman

Me wherever my life is lived, O to be self-balanced for contingencies, To confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.

One's-Self I Sing One's-self I sing, a simple separate person, Yet utter the word Democratic, the word En-Masse. Of physiology from top to toe I sing, Not physiognomy alone nor brain alone is worthy for the Muse, I say the Form complete is worthier far, The Female equally with the Male I sing. Of Life immense in passion, pulse, and power, Cheerful, for freest action form'd under the laws divine, The Modern Man I sing.

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.

Suddenly, out of its stale and drowsy air, the air of slaves, Like lightning Europe le'pt forth, Sombre, superb and terrible.

I believe in all that—in baseball, in picnics, in freedom.

Base-ball is our game: the American game: I connect it with our national character.

The known universe has one complete lover and that is the greatest poet.

As if any man really knew aught of my life, Why even I myself I often think know little or nothing of my real life, Only a few hints, a few diffused faint clews and indirections I seek for my own use to trace out here.)

O soul, thou pleasest me—I thee; Sailing these seas, or on the hills, or waking in the night, Thoughts, silent thoughts, of Time, and Space, and Death, like waters flowing...

If America is not for freedom I do not see what it is for.

And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier.

Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

I pursue you where none else has pursued you; Silence, the desk, the flippant expression, the night, the accustomed routine; if these conceal you from others, or from yourself, they do not conceal you from me. —Walt Whitman, from "To You," Leaves of Grass (Simon Schuster, August 1st 2006) Originally published July 4th 1855.

It is with America as it is with nature: I believe our institutions can digest, absorb, all elements, good and bad, godlike or devilish, that come along: it seems impossible for nature to fail to make good in the processes peculiar to her: in the same way it is impossible for America to fail to turn the worst luck into best--curses into blessings.

No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints <...> and nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost... ...Ample are time and space—ample the fields of Nature. The body, sluggish, aged, cold—the embers left from earlier fires, The light in the eye grown dim, shall duly flame again;

the old name absorbs into me—MANNAHATTA, the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.

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 far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.

The clock indicates the moment - but what does eternity indicate?

How beautiful and perfect are the animals! How perfect the earth, and the minutest thing upon it!

Have you ever loved the body of a woman? / Have you ever loved the body of a man? / Do you not see that these are exactly the same to all in all nations and times all over the earth?

O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, The ship has weathered every rack, the prize we sought is won, The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting.

America has its purpose: it must serve that purpose to the end: I look upon the future as certain: our people will in the end read all these lessons right: America will stand opposed to everything which means restriction--stand against all policies of exclusion: accept Irish, Chinese--knowing it must not question the logic of its hospitality.

Now I am terrified at the Earth, it is that calm and patient, It grows such sweet things out of such corruptions.