Walt Whitman quotes - page 10
Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs -- in religion, literature, colleges and schools -- democracy in all public and private life....
Walt Whitman
I exist as I am, that is enough, If no other in the world be aware I sit content, And if each and all be aware I sit content. One world is aware, and by the far the largest to me, and that is myself, And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness, I can wait.
Walt Whitman
I cannot too often repeat that Democracy is a word the real gist of which still sleeps, quite unawakened, notwithstanding the resonance and the many angry tempests out of which its syllables have come, from pen or tongue. It is a great word, whose history, I suppose, remains unwritten because that history has yet to be enacted.
Walt Whitman
If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere -- probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations -- many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.
Walt Whitman
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.
Walt Whitman
Lovebuds, put before you and within you, whoever you are, Buds to be unfolded on the old terms If you bring the warmth of the sun to them, they will open, and bring form, color, perfume, to you If you become the aliment and the wet, they will become flowers, fruits, tall blanches and trees.
Walt Whitman
Why should I wish to see God better than this day I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then, In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass, I find letters dropped in the street, and every one is signed by Gods name, And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoeer I go Others will punctually come forever and forever.
Walt Whitman
When I heard the learn'd astronomer, When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room, How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Walt Whitman