Quotes from Walt Whitman

Enough - the Centenarian's story ends; The two, past and present, have interchanged; I myself, as connector, as chansonnier of a great future, am now speaking.

In Whitman's writings in and about New Orleans, the kind of man Whitman was attracted to can be found scattered over almost every page, be they oyster vendors, omnibus drivers, or street toughs. Their type struck Whitman's fancy — personally and politically.

America means above all toleration, catholicity, welcome, freedom--a concern for Europe, for Asia, for Africa, along with its concern for America. It is something quite peculiar, hardly to be stated--evades you as the air--yet is a fact everywhere preciously present.

I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.

This is the meal pleasantly set . . . . this is the meat and drink for natural hunger, It is for the wicked just the same as the righteous . . . . I make appointments with all, I will not have a single person slighted or left away, I will not have a single person slighted or left away, The keptwoman and sponger and thief are hereby invited . . . . the heavy-lipped slave is invited . . . . the venerealee is invited, There shall be no difference between them and the rest.

I know I am august, I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood, I see that the elementary laws never apologize

In vain the razor-bill'd auk sails far north to Labrador

And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death

The myth of heaven indicates peace and night. The myth of heaven indicates the soul; The soul is always beautiful . . . it appears more or it appears less . . . it comes or lags behind

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

And I will not make a poem nor the least part of a poem but has reference to the soul, Because having look'd at the objects of the universe, I find there is no one nor any particle of one but has reference to the soul.

The pleasure 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 a new tongue.

The Dutchman voyages home, and the Scotchman and Welchman voyage home . . . and the native of the Mediterranean voyages home; To every port of England and France and Spain enter wellfilled ships; The Swiss foots it toward his hills . . . the Prussian goes his way, and the Hungarian his way, and the Pole goes his way, The Swede returns, and the Dane and Norwegian return.

Whoever you are, how superb and how divine is your body, or any part of it!

Creeds and schools in abeyance

O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations!

O LIVING always, always dying! O the burials of me past and present, O me while I stride ahead, material, visible, imperious as ever; O me, what I was for years, now dead, (I lament not, I am content;) O to disengage myself from those corpses of me, which I turn and look at where I cast them, To pass on, (O living! always living!) and leave the corpses behind.

For America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without;

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've made , the words of my book , nothing, the drift of it, everything . . . . -Walt Whitman

Read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body (Leaves of Grass preface)

It is time to explain myself—let us stand up.

I hear the bravuras of birds...the bustle of growing wheat...gossip of flames...clack of sticks cooking my meals.

To the States or any of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,/Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,/Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city, of this earth, ever afterward resumes its liberty.

The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.