Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
Walt Whitman
5
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman
6
Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
Walt Whitman
7
Freedom - to walk free and own no superior.
Walt Whitman
8
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
Walt Whitman
9
Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
Walt Whitman
10
Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?
Walt Whitman
11
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
Walt Whitman
12
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
Walt Whitman
13
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.
Walt Whitman
14
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
Walt Whitman
15
I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.
Walt Whitman
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
Walt Whitman
18
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?
Walt Whitman
19
I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
Walt Whitman
20
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Walt Whitman
21
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
22
Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.
Walt Whitman
23
Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.
Walt Whitman
24
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.
Walt Whitman
25
Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
Walt Whitman
26
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
Walt Whitman
27
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.
Walt Whitman
28
Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
Walt Whitman
Simplicity is the glory of expression.
Walt Whitman
31
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
32
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Walt Whitman
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.
Walt Whitman
35
The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.
Walt Whitman
36
The future is no more uncertain than the present.
Walt Whitman
37
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.
Walt Whitman
38
The real war will never get in the books.
Walt Whitman
39
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
Walt Whitman
40
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
Walt Whitman
41
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
Walt Whitman
42
There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.
Walt Whitman
43
There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.
Walt Whitman
44
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
Walt Whitman
45
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
Walt Whitman
Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
Walt Whitman
50
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
Walt Whitman
51
Wisdom is not finally tested in 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.
Walt Whitman
