1. Quotes
  2. Authors
  3. Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman Quotes
page 4

Walter "Walt" Whitman was an American poet, essayist, and journalist. A humanist, he was a part of the transition between transcendentalism and realism, incorporating both views in his works. Whitman is among the most influential poets in the American canon, often called the father of free verse. His work was very controversial in its time, particularly his poetry collection Leaves of Grass, which was described as obscene for its overt sexuality.

Born in Huntington on Long Island, Whitman worked as a journalist, a teacher, a government clerk, and—in addition to publishing his poetry—was a volunteer nurse during the American Civil War. Early in his career, he also produced a temperance novel, Franklin Evans . Whitman's major work, Leaves of Grass, was first published in 1855 with his own money. The work was an attempt at reaching out to the common person with an American epic. He continued expanding and revising it until his death in 1892. After a stroke towards the end of his life, he moved to Camden, New Jersey, where his health further declined. When he died at age 72, his funeral became a public spectacle.

✵ 31. May 1819 – 26. March 1892
Walt Whitman photo
Walt Whitman: 181   quotes 41   likes

Walt Whitman Quotes

“None has begun to think how divine he himself is and how certain the future is.”

Walt Whitman Starting from Paumanok

Starting from Paumanok. 7
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Thinking , Future

“What do you suppose will satisfy the soul except to walk free and own no superior?”

Walt Whitman

Laws for Creations
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Soul

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

Walt Whitman book Drum-Taps

Drum-Taps. Bivouac on a Mountain-side
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Star

“Yes, Mexico must be thoroughly chastised! Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not forward for a quarrel, American knows how to crush, as well as expand!”

Walt Whitman

Editorial comment identified as from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle (11 May 1846)
Disputed

World

“All, all for immortality,
Love like the light silently wrapping all.”

Walt Whitman

Song of the Universal, 4
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Love , Light

“I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death.”

Walt Whitman

Night on the Prairies
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

Death , Waiting

“I see Hermes, unsuspected, dying, well-beloved, saying to the people, "Do not weep for me,
This is not my true country, I have lived banished from my true country—I now go back there,
I return to the celestial sphere where every one goes in his turn."”

Walt Whitman

Salut au Monde, 6
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

People , Country

“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, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re examine 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.... The poet shall not spend his time in unneeded work. He shall know that the ground is always ready ploughed and manured.... others may not know it but he shall. He shall go directly to the creation. His trust shall master the trust of everything he touches.... and shall master all attachment.”

Walt Whitman

From the Preface to the 1855 edition of <i>Leaves of Grass</i>

School , Family , God , Soul

“I said: "Baseball is the hurrah game of the republic!"”

Walt Whitman

He was hilarious: "That's beautiful: the hurrah game! well — it's our game: that's the chief fact in connection with it: America's game: has the snap, go fling, of the American atmosphere — belongs as much to our institutions, fits into them as significantly, as our constitutions, laws: is just as important in the sum total of our historic life."
Conversation with Whitman (4 July 1889) as quoted in With Walt Whitman in Camden (1906) by Horace Traubel, Vol. IV

Game

“God is a mean-spirited, pugnacious bully bent on revenge against His children for failing to live up to his impossible standards.”

Walt Whitman
God , Children , Revenge