Happy birthday, Walt Whitman! Here are some quotes from his writing:
“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable…”
“This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with the mothers of families, […] reexamine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body.”
“To be surrounded by beautiful, curious, breathing, laughing flesh is enough…”
“I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.”
“What an awful thing war is!”
“Some people are so much sunlight to the square inch.”
“Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations—many rare combinations.”
“To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”
“I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.”
“Each of us inevitable;
Each of us limitless—each of us with his or her right upon the earth.”
“Peace is always beautiful.”
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
I am large, I contain multitudes.”
“When I give, I give myself.”
“Resist much, obey little.”
“I have perceiv’d that to be with those I like is enough…”
“Happiness, knowledge not in another place but this place—not for another hour, but this hour.”
“I am satisfied…I see, dance, laugh, sing…”
“Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find.”
“My words itch at your ears till you understand them.”
“From this hour I ordain myself loos’d of limits and imaginary lines,
Going where I list, my own master, total and absolute,
Listening to others, and considering well what they say,
Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating,
Gently, but with undeniable will, divesting myself of the holds that would hold me.”
“It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess. Who would not mourn that an ample palace, of surpassingly graceful architecture, fill’d with luxuries, and embellish’d with fine pictures and sculpture, should stand cold and still and vacant, and never be known or enjoy’d by its owner? Would such a fact as this cause your sadness? Then be sad. For there is a palace, to which the courts of the most sumptuous kings are but a frivolous patch, and, though it is always waiting for them, not one of its owners ever enters there with any genuine sense of its grandeur and glory.”
“Talk not so much, then, young artist, of the great old masters, who but painted and chisell’d. Study not only their productions. There is a still higher school for him who would kindle his fire with coal from the altar of the loftiest and purest art. It is the school of all grand actions and grand virtues, of heroism, of the death of patriots and martyrs — of all the mighty deeds written in the pages of history — deeds of daring, and enthusiasm, devotion, and fortitude.”
“Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.”
“I loafe and invite my soul.”
“I have no mockings or arguments; I witness and wait.”
“All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all.”
“Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful stroke!”
“Give me the splendid silent sun, with all his beams full-dazzling!”
“Come lovely and soothing death,
Undulate round the world, serenely arriving, arriving,
In the day, in the night, to all, to each,
Sooner or later, delicate death.”
“Praised be the fathomless universe
For life and joy and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praise
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.”
“Peace is always beautiful.”
“What do you suppose will satisfy the soul except to walk free and own no superior?”
“To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.”
“I was thinking the day most splendid, till I saw what the not-day exhibited;
I was thinking this globe enough, till there sprang out so noiseless around me myriads of other globes.”
“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.”
“What beauty there is in words; what a lurking curious charm in the sound some words.”
“Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves, As souls only understand souls.”
“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.”
“Loafe with me on the grass—loose the stop from your throat; Not words, not music or rhyme I want—not custom or lecture, not even the best; Only the lull I like, the hum of your valved voice.”
“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.”
“Those things most listened for, certainly those are the things least said.”
“Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?”
“Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”
“Oh amazement of things — even the least particle!”
“Books are to be called for and supplied on the assumption that the process of reading is not a half-sleep, but in the highest sense an exercise, a gymnastic struggle; that the reader is to do something for himself.”
“The fruition of beauty is no chance of hit or miss… it is inevitable as life.”
“The most affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out of the stronger wealth of himself.”
“Wisdom is not finally tested in 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, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.”
“Human bodies are words, myriads of words, (In the best poems re-appears the body, man’s or woman’s, well-shaped, natural, gay, Every part able, active, receptive, without shame or the need of shame.)”
“Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great.”
“Smile O voluptuous coolbreathed earth!
Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees!
Earth of departed sunset! Earth of the mountains misty-topt!
Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue!
Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river!
Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake!
Far-swooping elbowed earth! Rich apple-blossomed earth!
Smile, for your lover comes!”
“Praised be the fathomless universe
For life and joy and for objects and knowledge curious;
And for love, sweet love—But praise! O praise and praise
For the sure-enwinding arms of cool-enfolding Death.”
“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.”
“A perfect writer would make words sing, dance, kiss, do the male and female act, bear children, weep, bleed, rage, stab, steal, fire cannon, steer ships, sack cities, charge with cavalry or infantry, or do anything that man or woman or the natural powers can do.”
“The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him, The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him — it cannot fail.”
