Walt Whitman Quotes

O while I live to be the ruler of life, not a slave, To meet life as a powerful conqueror, No fumes, no ennui, no more complaints or scornful criticisms, To these proud laws of the air, the water and the ground, proving my interior soul impregnable, And nothing exterior shall ever take command of me.

Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

Whatever satisfies souls is true.

What we are we are, nativity is answer enough to objections, We wield ourselves as a weapon is wielded, We are powerful and tremendous in ourselves.

What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?

We have thus far exhausted trillions of winters and summers, There are trillions ahead, and trillions ahead of them.

There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.

There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe.

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing.

The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual — namely to You.

The proof of a poet shall be sternly deferr’d till his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorb’d it.

The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges or churches or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors … but always most in the common people.