Quotes from Walt Whitman

O all and each well-loved by me! my intrepid nations!

For America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without;

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries, for that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring forth from the war emerging, a book I've made , the words of my book , nothing, the drift of it, everything . . . . -Walt Whitman

The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.

The pleasures of heaven are with me, and the pains of hell are with me.

And as to you corpse I think you are good manure, but that does not offend me, I smell the white roses sweetscented and growing, I reach to the leafy lips . . . . I reach to the polished breasts of melons.

I am larger, better than I thought, / I did not know I held so much goodness

Allons! to that which is endless as it was beginningless.

The instincts of the American people are all perfect, and tend to make heroes.

Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof.

In poems or in speeches I say the word or two that has got to be said, adhere to the body, step with the countless common footsteps, and remind every man and woman of something.

The great poets are to be known by the absence in them of tricks, and by the justification of perfect personal candor. All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.