Either define the moment or the moment will define you. Walt Whitman More Quotes by Walt Whitman More Quotes From Walt Whitman I have no mockings or arguments; I witness and wait. Walt Whitman argument witness waiting If the United States haven't grown poets, on any scale of grandeur, it is certain that they import, print, and read more poetry than any equal number of people elsewhere -- probably more than the rest of the world combined. Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations -- many rare combinations. To have great poets, there must be great audiences too. Walt Whitman personality numbers people Liberty is to be subserved, whatever occurs. Walt Whitman liberty Copulation is no more foul to me than death is. Walt Whitman foul sex Apart from the pulling and hauling stands what I am, Stands amused, complacent, compassionating, idle, unitary, Looks down, is erect, or bends an arm on an impalpable certain rest, Looking with side-curved head curious what will come next, Both in and out of the game and watching and wondering at it. Walt Whitman arms games looks Our leading men are not of much account and never have been, but the average of the people is immense, beyond all history. Sometimes I think in all departments, literature and art included, that will be the way our superiority will exhibit itself. We will not have great individuals or great leaders, but a great average bulk, unprecedentedly great. Walt Whitman men art thinking Many a good man I have seen go under. Walt Whitman good-man defeat men I lean and loaf at my ease... observing a spear of summer grass. Walt Whitman summer grass ease Manhattan crowds, with their turbulent musical chorus! Manhattan faces and eyes forever for me. Walt Whitman eye new-york forever Lo! body and soul!--this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land,--the South And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn. Walt Whitman ohio light new-york The jour printer with gray head and gaunt jaws works at his case, He turns his quid of tobacco, while his eyes blur with the manuscript. Walt Whitman printing cases eye Out of every fruition of success, no matter what, comes forth something to make a new effort necessary. Walt Whitman fruition effort success There can be no theory of any account unless it corroborate with the theory of the earth. Walt Whitman accounts theory earth We also ascend dazzling and tremendous as the sun, Walt Whitman calm soul sun All truths wait in all things, They neither hasten their own delivery nor resist it, They do not need the obstetric forceps of the surgeon, The insignificant is as big to me as any, (What is less or more than a touch). Walt Whitman bigs waiting needs I say the whole earth and all the stars in the sky are for religion's sake. Walt Whitman stars sake sky I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences. Walt Whitman past art school He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher. Walt Whitman style honor teacher All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it. Walt Whitman look-up architecture looks Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth ever afterward resumes its liberty. Walt Whitman liberty cities earth
