Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

Quotes

• 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.