Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman
Walter "Walt" Whitmanwas 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...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionPoet
Date of Birth31 May 1819
CountryUnited States of America
Of all mankind the great poet is the equable man. Not in him but off from him things are grotesque or eccentric or fail of their sanity.
What stays with you latest and deepest? of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?
Where are your combing seas, your blue water, your rollers, your breakers, your whales, or your waterspouts, and your endless motion, in this bit of a forest, child?
And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?
Do I contradict myself? Very well then, I can bear it.
You want to know a sure way to lose money? Buy what's popular and don't know what you are investing in.
I have sometimes thought that the laws ought not to punish those actions of evil which are committed when the senses are steeped in intoxication.
More and more too, the old name absorbs into me. Mannahatta, 'the place encircled by many swift tides and sparkling waters.' How fit a name for America's great democratic island city! The word itself, how beautiful! how aboriginal! how it seems to rise with tall spires, glistening in sunshine, with such New World atmosphere, vista and action!
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.
Under the specious pretext of effecting 'the happiness of the whole community,' nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government has been carried through.
You road I enter upon and look around, I believe you are not all that is here, I believe much unseen is also here
And a summit and flower there is the feeling they have for each other, And they are to branch boundlessly out of that lesson until it becomes omnific, And until one and all shall delight us, and we them.
I do not seek good fortune - I am good fortune!
There will never be any more perfection than there is now.