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Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes

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Famous Walt Whitman Quotes

“I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from, The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.”

BelieveFeelingsI BelieveChurchPrayerSeeingDivineHolyMiracleI Believe InHearingFleshTouchedAppetiteCreedsScentTagAromaArmpits
Book:Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)
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“The secret of it all, is to write in the gush, the throb, the flood, of the moment – to put things down without deliberation – without worrying about their style – without waiting for a fit time or place. I always worked that way. I took the first scrap of paper, the first doorstep, the first desk, and wrote – wrote, wrote…By writing at the instant the very heartbeat of life is caught.”

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Author:Walt Whitman
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“You have not known what you are - you have slumber'd upon yourself all your life; Your eye-lids have been the same as closed most of the time; What you have done returns already in mockeries; Your thrift, knowledge, prayers, if they do not return in mockeries, what is their return? The mockeries are not you; Underneath them, and within them, I see you lurk.”

IfsHas BeensDoneEyePrayerKnownReturnMockerySlumberThrift
Book:Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856
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“What do you think has become of the young and old men? And what do you think has become of the women and children? They are alive and well somewhere, The smallest sprout shows there is really no death, And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it, And ceas'd the moment life appear'd. All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, And to die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

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Author:Walt Whitman
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“Once I passed through a populous city imprinting my brain for future use with its shows, architecture, customs, traditions, Yet now of all that city I remember only a woman I Casually met there who detained me for love of me, Day by day and night by night we were together—all else Has long been forgotten by me, I remember I say only that woman who passionately clung To me, Again we wander, we love, we separate again, Again she holds me by the hand, I must not go, I see her close beside me with silent lips sad and tremulous.”

LongUseShowsHandsTogetherRememberNightCitiesBrainMetsTraditionSilentForgottenLipsArchitectureWanderCustomsDay And NightHold MeImprinting
Book:Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892
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“I mind how once we lay such a transparent summer morning, How you settled your head athwart my hips and gently turn'd over upon me, And parted the shirt from my bosom-bone, and plunged your tongue to my bare-stript heart, And reach'd till you felt my beard, and reach'd till you held my feet.”

MindHeartTurnsFeltMorningFeetSummerLaysBonesTongueHipsShirtsTransparentBeardBosoms
Book:Leaves of Grass: A Textual Variorum of the Printed Poems, 1855-1856
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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.”

KnowsMenShouldMomentsFacesNamesWishHoursMy OwnForeverFourStreetsMen And WomenLettersTwentiesGlassesThis DayShould I
Book:Walt Whitman: Selected Poems 1855-1892
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“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough, To stop in company with the rest at evening is enough, To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough, To pass among them, or touch any one, or rest my arm ever so lightly round his or her neck for a moment—what is this, then? I do not ask any more delight—I swim in it, as in a sea.”

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Book:Leaves of Grass
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“Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.”

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Book:Delphi Complete Works of Walt Whitman (Illustrated)
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