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Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes

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Famous Walt Whitman Quotes

“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.”

MenTwoWarEyeFacesArtistThreePresidentLinesDarkCuttingSadnessCenturyExpressionNeededCaughtPainterCivil WarBrownSubtlePortraitsAbrahamLatentIndirect
Author:Walt Whitman
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“Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs - in religion, literature, colleges and schools- democracy in all public and private life.”

PeopleMayUseSchoolFormLiteratureNamesBeliefPartyDemocracyCollegeFlowerHighestElectionFruitMannersInteractionPrivate Life
Book:Democratic Vistas: The Original Edition in Facsimile
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“The purpose of democracy - supplanting old belief in the necessary absoluteness of establish'd dynastic rulership, temporal, ecclesiastical, and scholastic, as furnishing the only security against chaos, crime, and ignorance - is, through many transmigrations, and amid endless ridicules, arguments, and ostensible failures”

PurposeBeliefDemocracySecurityCrimeIgnoranceArgumentChaosEndlessRidiculeScholasticsRulershipSupplanting
Book:The Portable Walt Whitman
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“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.”

PeopleMenGivingShouldHas BeensBookSoulSchoolEarthHateAsksChurchAnimalNumbersKnownSunCrazyStupidLaborRichesArguingFleshIncomeInsultPetHatsTyrantsDespiseIndulgenceLeaves Of GrassHaving PatienceAlmsEarth And Sun
Author:Walt Whitman
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“Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)—Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world—a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious—surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity.”

WorldWellsAgeSchoolHumanityLiteratureChurchSunDemocracyFieldsConflictRemainsNotesPossessionTheologyCuriousGloriousPrimitiveTwinsTestingFossilsImaginativeMaterialisticFablesSuperstitiousIlluminating
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)
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“That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life.”

WellsImportantFactsAmericaBeautifulLawGamesFitConnectionsConstitutionInstitutionsChiefsAtmosphereHistoricSnapsFling
Author:Walt Whitman
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“In the dooryard fronting an old farm-house near the white-wash'd palings, Stands the lilac-bush tall-growing with heart-shaped leaves of rich green, with many a pointed blossom rising delicate, with the perfume strong I love, With every leaf a miracle - and from this bush in the dooryard, With delicate-color'd blossoms and heart-shaped leaves of rich green, A sprig with its flower I break.”

HeartHouseStrongWhiteBreakRichGrowingColorFlowerMiracleGreenRisingTallFarmsDelicateLeafsPerfumeHeart BreakLilac
Book:The Poems of Walt Whitman: Patriotic Poems
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“I cannot too often repeat that Democracy is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.”

StillsRealSleepDemocracyRemainsAngryHistoricalTongueRepeatsPensTempestResonanceSyllablesUnwrittenGist
Book:Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other Prose
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“The mother condemned for a witch and burnt with dry wood, and her children gazing on; The hounded slave that flags in the race and leans by the fence, blowing and covered with sweat, The twinges that sting like needles his legs and neck, The murderous buckshot and the bullets, All these I feel or am.”

FeelsChildrenMotherRaceEmpathySlaveLegsWoodsDryNecksCoveredWitchSweatFlagsBulletsFenceNeedlesGazing
Book:Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892
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