Quotes from Walt Whitman

So here I sit in the early candle-light of old age-I and my book-casting backward glances over out travel'd road.

The truth is simple. If it was complicated, everyone would understand it.

Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.

O magnet-South! O glistening perfumed South! My South! O quick mettle, rich blood, impulse and love! Good and evil! O all dear to me!

Now I see that there is no such thing as love unreturn'd. The pay is certain, one way or another.

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

Simplicity is the glory of expression.

There is no flaw or vacuum in the amount of the truth - but all is truth without exception; And henceforth I will go celebrate any thing I see or am, And sing and laugh and deny nothing.

What stays with you longest and deepest? Of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?

The Americans, like the English, probably make love worse than any other race.

The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.

The past, the future, majesty, love - if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.

I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost .The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again.

Camerado, this is no book. Who touches this, touches a man.

The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.

It is native personality, and that alone, that endows a man to stand before presidents or generals, or in any distinguished collection, with aplomb -and not culture, or any intellect whatever.

The future is no more uncertain than the present.

When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd, And the great star early droop'd in the western sky the night, I mourn'd - and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.

In the faces of men and women I see God and in my own face in the glass, I find letters from God dropt in the street, and every one is signed by God's name, and I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoever I go others will punctually come for ever and ever.

Behold! I do not give lectures on a little charity. When I give, I give myself.

Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting, While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring; But O heart! heart! heart! O the bleeding drops of red, Where on the deck my captain lies, Fallen cold and dead.

Nothing endures but personal qualities.

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.