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Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes

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Famous Walt Whitman Quotes

“And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results, And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.”

MayShowsHappensBeautifulTurnsUniversePerfectResultsEventsMiracleProfoundImperfectionThreadWhatever HappensCompact
Book:Selected poems
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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.”

EnoughMomentsBeautifulAsksCompanyLaughingSeaArmsRoundsDelightFleshCuriousEveningBreathingNecksSwim
Book:Leaves of Grass
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“The greatest country, the richest country, is not that which has the most capitalists, monopolists, immense grabbings, vast fortunes, with its sad, sad soil of extreme, degrading, damning poverty, but the land in which there are the most homesteads, freeholds - where wealth does not show such contrasts high and low, where all men have enough - a modest living- and no man is made possessor beyond the sane and beautiful necessities.”

MenDoeMadeCountryEnoughShowsBeautifulWealthPovertyLandLowsEconomicsFortuneExtremesInequalitySoilCapitalistContrastSaneImmenseModestDegradingSocial ClassGrabbingHighs And LowsEconomic InequalityWealth InequalityEconomic Equality
Author:Walt Whitman
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“To the garden of the world anew descending, Potent mates, daughters, sons, preluding, The love, the life of their bodies, meaning and being, Curious here behold my resurrection after slumber, The revolving cycles in their wide sweep having brought me again, amorous, mature, all beautiful to me, all wondrous, My limbs and the quivering fire that ever plays through them, for reasons, most wondrous, Existing I peer and penetrate still, Content with the present, content with the past, By my side or back of me Eve following, Or in front, and I following her just the same.”

WorldStillsReasonPlayBodyPastBeautifulSidesFireFrontsSonSpringDaughterGardenFollowingWideCuriousCyclesMatureMatesResurrectionPeersLimbsPenetrateWondrousSlumberDescendingRevolvingAmorous
Author:Walt Whitman
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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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“More and more too, the old name absorbs into me. Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!”

WorldSeemsActionAmericaBeautifulNamesWaterCitiesNew YorkFitDemocraticAtmosphereIslandsSunshineTallNew WorldTidesSparklingAboriginalVistasSpires
Book:Prose Works 1892, Volume II: Collect and Other Prose
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