Walt Whitman: Quotes about the soul

Walt Whitman was American poet, essayist and journalist. Explore interesting quotes on soul.

Walt Whitman: 362 quotes46 likes

“Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.”

“I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate
into a new tongue.”

“Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul.”

“Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…”

“This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best.
Night, sleep, and the stars.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“Let your soul stand cool and composed
before a million universes.”

Walt Whitman Song of Myself

Source: Song of Myself

“A writer can do nothing for men more necessary, satisfying, than just simply to reveal to them the infinite possibility of their own souls.”

“I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is”

“Clear and sweet is my soul, clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

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

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“I sing the body electric,
The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,
They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them,
And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.”

Walt Whitman book Fulles d'herba

Source: Leaves of Grass

“I loafe and invite my soul.”

Song of Myself, 1
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)

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

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

“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.”

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