Walt Whitman Quotes

“O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done, the ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won.”

“The future is no more uncertain than the present.”

“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.”

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

“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?”

“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?”

“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.”

“Freedom: to walk free and own no superior.”

“The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.”

“There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance.”

“The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, but always most in the common people.”

“Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.”

“The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.”

“To have great poets, there must be great audiences.”

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

“The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.”

“He most honours my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.”

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

“I see great things in baseball. It's our game, the American game.”

“To die is different from what any one supposed, and luckier.”

“The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.”

“I cannot be awake, for nothing looks to me as it did before. Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.”

“The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual: namely to You.”

“Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling; give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.”