 |
Nature
|
|
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on -- have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear -- what remains? Nature remains.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
|
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Night, Nighttime
|
|
|
Press close bare-bosomed night -- press close magnetic nourishing night! Night of south winds! night of the large few stars! Still nodding night! mad naked summer night.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Parties
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
Seasons pursuing each other the indescribable crowd is gathered, it is the fourth of Seventh-month, (what salutes of cannon and small arms!)
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Past, the
|
|
|
The Past -- the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf --the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
-Walt Whitman
|
|
People
|
|
|
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.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Poetry
|
|
|
At times it has been doubtful to me if Emerson really knows or feels what Poetry is at its highest, as in the Bible, for instance, or Homer or Shakspeare. I see he covertly or plainly likes best superb verbal polish, or something old or odd
-Walt Whitman, Emerson, 1892
|
|
Poverty
|
|
|
What a devil art thou, Poverty! How many desires -- how many aspirations after goodness and truth -- how many noble thoughts, loving wishes toward our fellows, beautiful imaginings thou hast crushed under thy heel, without remorse or pause!
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Praise
|
|
|
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Present, the
|
|
|
We convince by our presence.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Presidency
|
|
|
I see the President almost every day. I see very plainly Abraham Lincoln's dark brown face with its deep-cut lines, the eyes always to me with a deep latent sadness in the expression. None of the artists or pictures has caught the deep, though subtle and indirect expression of this man's face. There is something else there. One of the great portrait painters of two or three centuries ago is needed.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Professionalism
|
|
|
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Reading
|
|
|
Camerado! This is no book; who touches this touches a man.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
|
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Reality
|
|
|
I accept reality and dare not question it.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Relationships
|
|
|
Camerado, I give you my hand!
I give you my love more precious than money,
I give you myself before preaching or law;
Will you give me yourself, will you come travel with me?
Shall we stick by each other as long as we live?
-Walt Whitman, Song of the Open Road from Leaves of Grass, 1891
|
|
Sacrifice
|
|
|
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Self Respect
|
|
|
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Self-love
|
|
|
I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Sex
|
|
|
Sex contains all, bodies, souls,
Meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations,
Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk,
All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, beauties,
delights of the earth.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Simplicity
|
|
|
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Sleep
|
|
|
The city sleeps and the country sleeps, the living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, the old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife; and these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be of these more or less I am, and of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Style
|
|
|
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
-Walt Whitman
|
|
Sympathy
|
|
|
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
-Walt Whitman
|
Books by and about Walt Whitman