Quotes from Walt Whitman

CITY OF THE WORLD (FOR ALL RACES ARE HERE, ALL THE LANDS OF THE EARTH MAKE CONTRIBUTIONS HERE), CITY OF THE SEA! CITY OF WHARVES AND STORES - CITY OF TALL FACADES OF MARBLE AND IRON! PROUD AND PASSIONATE CITY - METTLESOME, MAD, EXTRAVAGANT CITY!

Great is life...and real and mystical...wherever and whoever, Great is death...Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together; Sure as the stars return again after they merge on the light, death is as great as life.

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

Whoever you are holding me now in hand, Without one thing all will be useless, I give you fair warning before you attempt me further, I am not what you supposed, but far different. -from Whoever You Are Holding Me Now in Hand

Great is language . . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences, It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . . and of men and women . . . . and of all qualities and processes; It is greater than wealth . . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music.

Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.

I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.

Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you finding the best or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding also the sweetest and strongest and lovingest, Happiness not in another place, but this place... not for another hour, but this hour

The past and present wilt—I have fill'd them, emptied them. And proceed to fill my next fold of the future.

O Captain! my Captain! rise up and hear the bells; Rise up—for you the flag is flung—for you the bugle trills…

Me celebro y me canto a mí mismo. Y lo que yo diga ahora de mí, lo digo de ti, porque lo que yo tengo lo tienes tú y cada átomo de mi cuerpo es tuyo también.

Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!

The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for encouraging competitors… . The great poets are also to be known by the absence in them of tricks and by the justification of perfect personal candor… . How beautiful is candor! All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.

When I Read the Book When I read the book, the biography famous, And is this then (said I) what the author calls a man's life? And so will some one when I am dead and gone write my life? (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.)

It is that something in the soul which says,—Rage on, whirl on, I tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of all terror and all pain.

Soy una infinidad de cosas ya cumplidas y una inmensidad de cosas por cumplir.

And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as         profound as any.

Agonies are one of my changes of garments; I do not ask the wounded person how he feels . . . . I myself become the wounded person, My hurt turns livid upon me as I lean on a cane and observe.

Human bodies are words, myriads of words; In the best poems reappears the body, man's or woman's, well-shaped,         natural, gay;

Either define the moment or the moment will define you.

Beautiful dripping fragments—the negligent list of one after another, as I happen to call them to me, or think of them, The real poems, (what we call poems being merely pictures,) The poems of the privacy of the night, and of men like me, This poem, drooping shy and unseen, that I always carry, and that all men carry

It is not upon you alone the dark patches fall, The dark threw its patches down upon me also, The best I had done seem'd to me blank and suspicious, My great thoughts as I supposed them, were they not in reality meagre?

The greatest poet does not moralize or make applications of morals... he knows the soul. The soul has that measureless pride which consists in never acknowledging any lessons but its own.

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.