"How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!"
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Quote collection
Walt Whitman quotes (page 18 of 25)
494 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I lean and loaf at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass."
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"Whoever you are, motion and reflection are especially for you, The divine ship sails the divine sea for you."
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"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."
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"Sex contains all, Bodies, Souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, Songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; All hopes, benefactions, bestowals, All the passions, loves, beauties, delights of the earth, All the governments, judges, gods, follow'd persons of the earth, These are contain'd in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself."
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"The press of my foot to the earth springs a hundred affections."
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"To me, every hour of the light and dark is a miracle, every inch of space is a miracle, every square yard of the surface of the earth is spread with the same, every cubic foot of the interior swarms with the same; every spear of grass-the frames, limbs, organs, of men and women, and all that concerns them, all these to me are unspeakably perfect miracles."
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"To speak in literature with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of the movements of animals and the unimpeachable of the sentiment of trees in the woods and grass by the roadside is the flawless triumph of art."
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"An individual is as superb as a nation when he has the qualities which make a superb nation."
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"Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has."
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"I pass death with the dying and birth with the new-wash'd babe, and am not contained between my hat and my boots."
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"Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?"
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"But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?"
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"Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice, him or her shall I follow."
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"You will hardly know who I am or what I mean"
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"I see that I am to wait for what will be exhibited by death."
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"It is only the novice in political economy who thinks it is the duty of government to make its citizens happy - government has no such office."
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"Most works are most beautiful without ornament."
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"And I will show that there is no imperfection in the present, and can be none in the future, And I will show that whatever happens to anybody it may be turn'd to beautiful results, And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death, And I will thread a thread through my poems that time and events are compact, And that all the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any."
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"Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land."
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