Poet · American · 1819 – 1892 · 79 quotes
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.
Walt Whitman
Poet · American · 1819 – 1892
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?
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.
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Produce great men, the rest follows.
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.
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.
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
Nothing endures but personal qualities.
Simplicity is the glory of expression.
The beautiful uncut hair of graves.
If you done it, it ain't bragging.
I exist as I am, that is enough.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
We convince by our presence.
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?
Be curious, not judgmental.
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.
I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
When I give, I give myself.
