Quotes from Walt Whitman

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.

Many a soldier's loving arms about this neck have cross'd and rested,Many a soldier's kiss dwells on these bearded lips.

Words! book-words! what are you?

And whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years, I can cheefully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait... And as to you, Life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, (No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.)

Answer That you are here---that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Judging from the main portion of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.

My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof in my face, With the hush of my lips I wholly confound the skeptic.

Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.

Swiftly arose and spread around me the peace and knowledge that pass all the argument of the earth, And I know that the hand of God is the promise of my own, And I know that the spirit of God is the brother of my own, And that all the men ever born are also my brothers, and the women my sisters and lovers, And that a kelson of the creation is love.

The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.

The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough