Top 400 Walt Whitman Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.”

— Walt Whitman

152. “O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do.”

— Walt Whitman

153. “Here is not merely a nation but a teeming nation of nations.”

— Walt Whitman

154. “Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems.”

— Walt Whitman

155. “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?”

— Walt Whitman

156. “Now I will do nothing but listen to accrue what I hear into this song. To let sounds contribute toward it. I hear the sound I love. The sound of the human voice. I hear all sounds running together.”

— Walt Whitman

157. “Be not dishearten’d – Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible.”

— Walt Whitman

158. “Now understand me well. It is provided in the essence of things that from any fruition of success, no matter what, shall come forth something to make a greater struggle necessary.”

— Walt Whitman

159. “All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.”

— Walt Whitman

160. “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.”

— Walt Whitman

161. “Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty.”

— Walt Whitman

162. “Over all the sky – the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded with eternal stars.”

— Walt Whitman

163. “I loafe and invite my soul.”

— Walt Whitman

164. “I sing the body electric.”

— Walt Whitman

165. “I will sleep no more but arise, You oceans that have been calm within me! how I feel you, fathomless, stirring, preparing unprecedented waves and storms.”

— Walt Whitman

166. “Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.”

— Walt Whitman

167. “I announce the great individual, fluid as Nature, chaste, affectionate, compassionate, fully armed; I announce a life that shall be copious, vehement, spiritual, bold, And I announce an end that shall lightly and joyfully meet its translation.”

— Walt Whitman

168. “Sure as the most certain sure, plumb in the uprights, well entretied, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery here we stand.”

— Walt Whitman

169. “Are you the new person drawn toward me? To begin with, take warning, I am surely far different from what you suppose.”

— Walt Whitman

170. “And that my Soul embraces you this hour, and we affect each other without ever seeing each other, and never perhaps to see each other, is every bit as wonderful.”

— Walt Whitman

171. “Shut not your doors to me proud libraries.”

— Walt Whitman

172. “I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.”

— Walt Whitman

173. “There is no place like it, no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy. It lays its hand upon a man’s bowels; he grows drunk with ecstasy; he grows young and full of glory, he feels that he can never die.”

— Walt Whitman

174. “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean But I shall be good health to you nonetheless And filter and fibre your blood.”

— Walt Whitman

175. “From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master...”

— Walt Whitman

176. “The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it.”

— Walt Whitman

177. “Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.”

— Walt Whitman

178. “I dote on myself. There is a lot of me and all so luscious.”

— Walt Whitman

179. “The sum of all known value and respect, I add up in you, whoever you are.”

— Walt Whitman

180. “The earth, that is sufficient, I do not want the constellations any nearer, I know they are very well where they are, I know they suffice for those who belong to them.”

— Walt Whitman

181. “The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.”

— Walt Whitman

182. “All is procession; the universe is a procession with measured and beautiful motion.”

— Walt Whitman

183. “Logic and sermons never convince, The damp of the night drives deeper into my soul.”

— Walt Whitman

184. “The past, the future, majesty, love – if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.”

— Walt Whitman

185. “The strongest and sweetest song remains to be sung.”

— Walt Whitman

186. “You will hardly know who I am or what I mean.”

— Walt Whitman

187. “I speak the password primeval; I give the sign of democracy.”

— Walt Whitman

188. “Youth, large, lusty, loving – Youth, full of grace, force, fascination. Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination?”

— Walt Whitman

189. “All the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.”

— Walt Whitman

190. “The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections.”

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

192. “Dazzling and tremendous how quick the sun-rise would kill me, if I could not now and always send sun-rise out of me.”

— Walt Whitman

193. “O public road, I say back I am not afraid to leave you, yet I love you, you express me better than I can express myself.”

— Walt Whitman

194. “I think I could turn and live with animals, they are so placid and self-contained, I stand and look at them long and long.”

— Walt Whitman

195. “When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot. My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.”

— Walt Whitman

196. “Day full-blown and splendid-day of the immense sun, action, ambition, laughter, The Night follows close with millions of suns, and sleep and restoring darkness.”

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

198. “Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass, Be not afraid of my body.”

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

200. “Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.”

— Walt Whitman