36 Famous Quotes by Walt Whitman
5/31/1819 - 3/26/1892
Also Known As:
Walter Whitman
Professions:
Information:
About Walt Whitman
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 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. He died at age 72 and his funeral became a public spectacle.
Whitman's sexuality is often discussed alongside his poetry. Though biographers continue to debate his sexuality, he is usually described as either homosexual or bisexual in his feelings and attractions. However, there is disagreement among biographers as to whether Whitman had actual sexual experiences with men. Whitman was concerned with politics throughout his life. He supported the Wilmot Proviso and opposed the extension of slavery generally. His poetry presented an egalitarian view of the races, and at one point he called for the abolition of slavery, but later he saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to democracy.
Wisdom is not finally tested in the 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.
Judgment
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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Thunder on! Stride on! Democracy. Strike with vengeful
strokes.
Democracy
Quotes, by Walt Whitman , Source: Drum-Taps--Rise O Days From Your Fathomless Deep (no. 3)
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The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case,
He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blur with the
manuscript.
Printing
Quotes, by Walt Whitman , Source: Leaves of Grass--Walt Whitman (pt. XV, st. 77)
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Where the katydid works her chromatic reed on the walnut-tree
over the well.
Katydids
Quotes, by Walt Whitman , Source: Leaves of Grass--Song of Myself (pt. 33, l. 61)
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Lo! body and soul!--this land!
Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and
The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships;
The varied and ample land,--the South
And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri,
And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn.
- Walt Whitman,
New york
Quotes, by Walt Whitman , Source: Sequel to Drum-Taps--When Lilacs Last in the Door-Yard Bloom'd (st. 12)
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Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others ... And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Love
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first; Be not discouraged-- keep on-- there are divine things, well envelop'd; I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.
Silence
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
Sleep
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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Old age, calm, expanded, broad with the haughty breadth of the universe, old age flowing free with the delicious near-by freedom of death.
Age
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
Language
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.
Unconscious
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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On the beach at night,
Stands a child with her father,
Watching the east, the autumn sky.
Up through the darkness,
While ravening clouds, the burial clouds, in black masses spreading,
Lower sullen and fast athwart and down the sky,
Amid a transparent clear belt of ether yet left in the east,
Ascends large and calm the lord-star Jupiter,
And nigh at hand, only a very little above,
Swim the delicate sisters the Pleiades.
From the beach the child holding the hand of her father,
Those burial-clouds that lower victorious soon to devour all,
Watching, silently weeps.
Weep not, child,
Weep not, my darling,
With these kisses let me remove your tears,
The ravening clouds shall not long be victorious,
They shall not long possess the sky, they devour the stars only in apparition,
Jupiter shall emerge, be patient, watch again another night,
the Pleiades shall emerge,
They are immortal, all those stars both silvery and golden shall shine out again,
The great stars and the little ones shall shine out again, they endure,
The vast immortal suns and the long-enduring pensive moons shall again shine.
Then dearest child mournest thou only for jupiter?
Considerest thou alone the burial of the stars?
Something there is, (With my lips soothing thee, adding I whisper,
I give thee the first suggestion, the problem and indirection,)
Something there is more immortal even than the stars,
(Many the burials, many the days and nights, passing away,)
Something that shall endure longer even than lustrous Jupiter
Longer than sun or any revolving satellite,
Or the radiant sisters the Pleiades.
Beauty
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people.
Class
Quotes, by Walt Whitman
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