Walt Whitman citations

Page 4

“Give me juicy autumnal fruit, ripe and red from the orchard."

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“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.”

“after you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.”

“I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again / I am to see to it that I do not lose you”

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

“To have great poets,
there must be great audiences.”

“Unscrew the locks from the doors!
Unscrew the doors themselves from their jambs!”

“Agonies are one of my changes of garments.”

“Be not dishearten'd -- Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet;
Those who love each other shall become invincible.”

“Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.”

“The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung.”

“I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your bootsoles.”

“A child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands;
How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more
than he.”

“Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough.”

“TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little,
Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,
Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty.”

“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.”

“I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable.”

“I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,
And accrue what I hear into myself… and let sound contribute toward me.”

“I refuse putting from me the best that I am.”

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

“All truths wait in all things,
They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it,
They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon,
The insignificant is as big to me as any,
(What is less or more than a touch)…”

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

“This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me”

“A blade of grass is the journeywork of the stars”

“The sum of all known value and respect, I add up in you, whoever you are.”

“Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me”

“I am larger, better than I thought;
I did not know I held so much goodness.”

“When I give, I give myself”