Walt Whitman
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.
The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Let that which stood in front go behind, let that which was behind advance to the front, let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, let the old propositions be postponed.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.
I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences.
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?
O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.
I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?
Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
Either define the moment or the moment will define you.Collection: Moments
Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.Collection: Happiness
Every hour of every day is an unspeakably perfect miracle.Collection: Perfect
This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone 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, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men ... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.Collection: Stupid
When one reaches out to help another he touches the face of God.Collection: Teacher
The truth is simple. If it was complicated, everyone would understand it.Collection: Truth
We were together. I forget the rest.Collection: Love
Where the earth is, we are.Collection: Environmental
The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged - keep on - there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.Collection: Beautiful
I keep thinking about you every few minutes all day.Collection: Thinking About You
Peace is always beautiful.Collection: Beautiful
I see behind each mask that wonder a kindred soul.Collection: Soul
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him - it cannot failCollection: Failing
The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.Collection: Inspirational
The orchestra whirls me wider than Uranus flies, It wrenches such ardors from me I did not know I possess'd themCollection: Orchestra
I will not descend among professors and capitalists.Collection: Professors
In nothing is there more evolution than the American mind.Collection: Mind
When lilacs last in the dooryard bloom'd / And the great star early droop'd in the western sky in the night, / I mourn'd, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.Collection: Stars
Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.Collection: New York
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it.Collection: Waiting
I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.Collection: Love
Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.Collection: Sun