Top 400 Walt Whitman Quotes (2025 Update)
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351. “Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.”

— Walt Whitman

352. “Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me.”

— Walt Whitman

353. “Walt Whitman, a kosmos, of Manhattan the son, Turbulent, fleshy, sensual, eating, drinking and breeding, No sentimentalist, no stander above men and women or apart from them, No more modest than immodest.”

— Walt Whitman

354. “Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls.”

— Walt Whitman

355. “Something there is more immortal even than the stars.”

— Walt Whitman

356. “I am an acme of things accomplished, and I am an encloser of things to be.”

— Walt Whitman

357. “But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?”

— Walt Whitman

358. “I have no chair, no church, no philosophy, I lead no man to a dinner-table, library, exchange, But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll, My left hand hooking you round the waist, My right hand pointing to landscapes of continents and the public road. Not I, not any one else can travel that road for you, You must travel it for yourself.”

— Walt Whitman

359. “Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?”

— Walt Whitman

360. “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.”

— Walt Whitman

361. “What do you seek, so pensive and silent? What do you need, Camerado? Dear son! do you think it is love? Listen, dear son – listen, America, daughter or son! It is a painful thing to love a man or woman to excess – and yet it satisfies – it is great; But there is something else very great – it makes the whole coincide; It, magnificent, beyond materials, with continuous hands, sweeps and provides for all.”

— Walt Whitman

362. “The President eats dirt and excrement for his daily meals, likes it and tries to force it on The States.”

— Walt Whitman

363. “I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.”

— Walt Whitman

364. “O America! Because you build for mankind I build for you.”

— Walt Whitman

365. “And I or you pocketless of a dime, may purchase the pick of the earth.”

— Walt Whitman

366. “I resist any thing better than my own diversity, Breathe the air but leave plenty after me, And am not stuck up, and am in my place.”

— Walt Whitman

367. “It is that something in the soul which says, – Rage on, whirl on, I tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of all terror and all pain.”

— Walt Whitman

368. “I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, All all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems. Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward.”

— Walt Whitman

369. “I see great things in baseball. It’s our game – the American game.”

— Walt Whitman

370. “I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men, I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers.”

— Walt Whitman

371. “This face is a dog’s snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.”

— Walt Whitman

372. “I henceforth tread the world, chaste, temperate, an early riser, a steady grower.”

— Walt Whitman

373. “Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?”

— Walt Whitman

374. “To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachable of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art.”

— Walt Whitman

375. “I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.”

— Walt Whitman

376. “We carry our fresh air with us, wherever we go. He who has it, has it anywhere – nothing can rob him of it. I find in all characters that live close to nature, capriciousness, variability – they seem to pattern after nature’s higher rules. The children are that way, and dogs, cats – not but that their perceptions, intuitions, are keen enough, but with the capricious, too.”

— Walt Whitman

377. “Where are your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers, your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this bit of a forest, child?”

— Walt Whitman

378. “Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don’t you let it out then?”

— Walt Whitman

379. “By writing at the instant, the very heartbeat of life is caught.”

— Walt Whitman

380. “All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it;.”

— Walt Whitman

381. “Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!”

— Walt Whitman

382. “Let that which stood in front go behind, let that which was behind advance to the front, let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, let the old propositions be postponed.”

— Walt Whitman

383. “I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runway sun, 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. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you.”

— Walt Whitman

384. “And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”

— Walt Whitman

385. “Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you...”

— Walt Whitman

386. “All forces have been steadily employ’d to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.”

— Walt Whitman

387. “What beauty there is in words; what a lurking curious charm in the sound some words.”

— Walt Whitman

388. “And I will show of male and female that either is but the equal of the other.”

— Walt Whitman

389. “My spirit has pass’d in compassion and determination around the whole earth. I have look’d for equals and lovers an found them ready for me in all lands, I think some divine rapport has equalized me with them.”

— Walt Whitman

390. “The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.”

— Walt Whitman

391. “The souls moving along... are they invisible while the least atom of the stones is visible?”

— Walt Whitman

392. “Great is life... and real and mystical... wherever and whoever, Great is death... Sure as life holds all parts together, death holds all parts together; Sure as the stars return again after they merge on the light, death is as great as life.”

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

394. “I say you shall yet find the friend you were looking for.”

— Walt Whitman

395. “O the joy of the strong-brawn’d fighter, towering in the arena in perfect condition, conscious of power, thirsting to meet his opponent.”

— Walt Whitman

396. “Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.”

— Walt Whitman

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

— Walt Whitman

398. “To drive free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts. One brief house of madness and joy!”

— Walt Whitman

399. “Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.”

— Walt Whitman

400. “There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate with the theory of the earth.”

— Walt Whitman