Walt Whitman

I exist as I am, that is enough.

This day before dawn I ascended a hill and looked at the crowded heaven.

If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred.

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

A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.

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

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.

All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.

There is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.

And your very flesh shall be a great poem.

Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.

Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.

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?

Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.

How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.

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.

Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.

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

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.

To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.

Wisdom is not finally tested in the schools, Wisdom cannot be pass'd from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

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

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

I know nothing grander, better exercise, better digestion, more positive proof of the past, the triumphant result of faith in human kind, than a well-contested American national election.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

I celebrate myself, and sing myself.

The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing.

Nothing endures but personal qualities.

Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.
It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.

The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.

Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves?

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?

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

Either define the moment or the moment will define you.

The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.

In the faces of men and women I see God.

Keep your face always toward the sunshine - and shadows will fall behind you.