Quotes from Walt Whitman

The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity: nothing is better than simplicity.

I loafe and invite my soul, I lean and loafe at my ease, observing a spear of summer grass.

Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!

Strange, (is it not?) that battles, martyrs, blood, even assassination should so condense - perhaps only really lastingly condense - a Nationality.

Wisdom is not finally tested by the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

The road to wisdom is paved with excess. The mark of a true writer is their ability to mystify the familiar and familiarize the strange.

A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.

A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity; but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman.

I am the man, I suffered, I was there.

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers, where I can walk undisturbed...

Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard...

Love the earth and sun and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem...

I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.

To me, every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Be not ashamed women, ... You are the gates of the body, and you are the gates of the soul.

Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you/ That you may be my poem/ I whisper with my lips close to your ear/ I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.

The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself.

I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.

To me the sea is a continual miracle; The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the ships, with men in them, what stranger miracles are there?

Give me a field where the unmowed grass grows...

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons, It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree-toad is a chef-d'Å"uvre for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.