Walt Whitman

“I swear I begin to see the meaning of these things. It is not the earth, it is not America, who is so great, it is I who am great or to be great…”

“What blurt is this about virtue and about vice?Evil propels me and reform of evil propels me, I stand indifferent,My gait is no fault-finder's or rejecter's gait,I moisten the roots of all that has grown.”

“And as to me, I know nothing else but miracles”

“I will not descend among professors and capitalists.”

“You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things.”

“Happiness, not in another place but this place...not for another hour, but this hour.”

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.You must travel it by yourself.It is not far. It is within reach.Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.”

“I inhale great draught of space...the east and west are mine...and the north and south are mine...I am grandeur than I thought...I did not know i held so much goodness. ”

“I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of thewhole of the rest of the earth,I dream'd that was the new city of Friends,Nothing was greater there than the quality of robust love, it led the rest,It was seen every hour in the actions of the men of that city,And in all their looks and words.”

“Afoot and lighthearted I take to the open road, healthy, free, the world before me.”

“In the faces of men and women, I see God.”

“From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.”

“What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

“A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”

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“Have you surpassed the rest? Are you the president? It doesn't matter. They will more than arrive there, every one, and still pass on.”

“There is no God any more divine than Yourself.”

“God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.”

“O captain! My Captain!Our fearful trip is done. The ship has weather'd every wrackThe prize we sought is wonThe port is near, the bells I hearThe people all exultingWhile follow eyes, the steady keelThe vessel grim and daringBut Heart! Heart! Heart! O the bleeding drops of redWhere on the deck my captain liesFallen cold and dead.”

“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?”

“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; to bring out from their torpid recesses, the affinities of a man or woman with the open air, the trees, fields, the changes of seasons — the sun by day and the stars of heaven by night.”

“Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,You shall possess the good of the earth and sun.... there are millions of suns left,You shall no longer take things at second or third hand.... nor look through the eyes of the dead.... nor feed on the spectres in books,You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,You shall listen to all sides and filter them from yourself.”

“When I heard the learn’d astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.”

“I refuse putting from me the best that I am.”

“Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”

“not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,The hundred & fifty are dumb yet at Alamo.”

“Copulation is no more foul to me than death is.”

“I celebrate myself, and sing myself,And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.I loafe and invite my soul,I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.32. I think I could turn and live with animals, they're so placid and self-contained,I stand and look at them and long.They do not sweat and whine about their condition.They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins.They do not make me sick discussiong their duty to God,Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,Not one is respectable or unhappy over the earth.52. The spotted hawk swoops by and accuses me, he complains of my gab and loitering.I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable,I sound my barbaric YAWP over the roofs of the world.”

“Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it.”

“I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.”

“Agonies are one of my changes of garments.”

“I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best. ”

“I lean and loaf at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass.”

“I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contain’d, I stand and look at them long and long.They do not sweat and whine about their condition, They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago, Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”

“The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”

“Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…”

“WE two boys together clinging,One the other never leaving,Up and down the roads going, North and South excursions making,Power enjoying, elbows stretching, fingers clutching,Arm'd and fearless, eating, drinking, sleeping, loving.No law less than ourselves owning, sailing, soldiering, thieving,threatening,Misers, menials, priests alarming, air breathing, water drinking, onthe turf or the sea-beach dancing,Cities wrenching, ease scorning, statutes mocking, feeblenesschasing,Fulfilling our foray.”

“The real war will never get in the books.”

“Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking-bird’s throat, the musical shuttle, Out of the Ninth-month midnight, Over the sterile sands, and the fields beyond, where the child, leaving his bed, wander’d alone, bare-headed, barefoot, Down from the shower’d halo,Up from the mystic play of shadows, twining and twisting as if they were alive, Out from the patches of briers and blackberries, From the memories of the bird that chanted to me, From your memories, sad brother—from the fitful risings and fallings I heard, From under that yellow half-moon, late-risen, and swollen as if with tears,From those beginning notes of sickness and love, there in the transparent mist, From the thousand responses of my heart, never to cease, From the myriad thence-arous’d words, From the word stronger and more delicious than any, From such, as now they start, the scene revisiting,As a flock, twittering, rising, or overhead passing, Borne hither—ere all eludes me, hurriedly, A man—yet by these tears a little boy again, Throwing myself on the sand, confronting the waves, I, chanter of pains and joys, uniter of here and hereafter,Taking all hints to use them—but swiftly leaping beyond them, A reminiscence sing. ”

“The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.”

“And your very flesh shall be a great poem.”

“Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”

“I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.”

“Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

“I accept Time absolutely. It alone is without flaw, It alone rounds and completes all, That mystic baffling wonder.”

“I act as the tongue of you,... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.”

“If you done it, it ain't bragging.”

“All truths wait in all things,They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,The insignificant is as big to me as any,(What is less or more than a touch)...”

“Resist much, obey little.”