Walt Whitman Quotes - Page 16

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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?

Walt Whitman

Forever, Vision, Leaves Of Grass

Walt Whitman, Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856”, p.35, NYU Press

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

Walt Whitman

War, Blood, History

Walt Whitman (1995). “Specimen Days: & Collect”, p.314, Courier Corporation

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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.

Walt Whitman

Art, School, Past

Walt Whitman, Floyd Stovall (2007). “Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other Prose”, p.365, NYU Press

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Camden was originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden. It has brought me blessed returns.

Walt Whitman

Sorry, Blessed, Return

Walt Whitman, Walter Magnes Teller, Horace Traubel (1973). “Walt Whitman's Camden conversations”

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Me imperturbe, standing at ease in nature.

Walt Whitman

Nature, Ease, Standing

'Me imperturbe'

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THIS dust was once the Man, / Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand, / Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, / Was saved the Union of These States.

Walt Whitman

Men, Dust, Hands

'This dust was once the man'

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The process of reading is not a half sleep, but in the highest sense, an exercise, a gymnast's struggle: that the reader is to do something for him or herself, must be on the alert, just construct indeed the poem, argument, history, metaphysical essay--the text furnishing the hints, the clue, the start, the framework.

Walt Whitman

Struggle, Reading, Sleep

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And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turned to beautiful results.

Walt Whitman

Beautiful, Adversity, Imperfection

Walt Whitman (2011). “Leaves of Grass, 1860: The 150th Anniversary Facsimile Edition”, p.15, University of Iowa Press

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Shut not your doors to me proud libraries.

Walt Whitman

Doors, Library, Leaves Of Grass

Walt Whitman (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1860-1867”, p.456, NYU Press

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Praised be the fathomless universe, for life and joy, and for objects and knowledge curious.

Walt Whitman

Life, Knowledge, Joy

'When lilacs last in the dooryard bloomed' st. 14

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What has miserable, inefficient Mexico...to do with the great mission of peopling the New World with a noble race?

Walt Whitman

Race, Mexico, Noble

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Wisdom is not finally tested in 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, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

Walt Whitman

School, Reality, Sight

Walt Whitman (2012). “Selected Poems”, p.33, Courier Corporation

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Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

Walt Whitman

Love, Peace, Brother

Walt Whitman “Annotated LEAVES OF GRASS with English Grammar Exercises: by Walt Whitman (Author), Robert Powell (Editor)”, Powell Publications, LLC

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Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.

Walt Whitman

Art, Men, Thinking

Walt Whitman, Floyd Stovall (2007). “Prose Works 1892: Speciman Days”, p.225, NYU Press

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Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.

Walt Whitman

Rocks, Purpose, Months

Walt Whitman, Sculley Bradley, Harold W. Blodgett (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856”, p.24, NYU Press

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Why should I wish to see God better than this day? I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass; I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever.

Walt Whitman

Men, Names, Glasses

Walt Whitman (2013). “Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892”, p.63, St. Martin's Press

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Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?

Walt Whitman

Long, Acres, Earth

Walt Whitman, Robert Hass (2010). “Song of Myself, and Other Poems”, p.80, Counterpoint Press

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This hour I tell things in confidence/ I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you.

Walt Whitman

Might, Hours

Walt Whitman (2013). “Leaves of Grass”, p.59, Simon and Schuster

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Are you the new person drawn toward me?

Walt Whitman

Leaves Of Grass, Persons

Walt Whitman (2008). “Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1860-1867”, p.382, NYU Press

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Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be.

Walt Whitman

Air, Miracle, Age

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For we cannot tarry here, We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger, We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!

Walt Whitman

Race, Pioneers, Bears

"Pioneers! O Pioneers!" l. 6 (1881)

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An individual is as superb as a nation when he has the qualities which make a superb nation.

Walt Whitman

Quality, Individual, Superb

Walt Whitman (1855). “Leaves of Grass”

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A murmuring, fateful, giant voice, out of the earth and sky, Voice of a mighty dying tree in the Redwood forest dense.... [T]he wood-spirits came from their haunts of a thousand years, to join the refrain; But in my soul I plainly heard. Murmuring out of its myriad leaves, Down from its lofty top, rising two hundred feet high, Out of its stalwart trunk and limbs - out of its foot-thick bark, That chant of the seasons and time - chant, not of the past only, but of the future.

Walt Whitman

Past, Years, Sky

Walt Whitman, “Song Of The Redwood-Tree”

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This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me

Walt Whitman

Cities, Citizens, Interest

Walt Whitman (2013). “Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)”, p.228, Delphi Classics

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Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her shall I follow.

Walt Whitman

Voice, Speech, Speak

Walt Whitman (1861). “Leaves of Grass”, p.240

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Born: May 31, 1819
Died: March 26, 1892
Occupation: Poet
Cite this Page: Citation

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