Walt Whitman

Ranking: 229th
Biography of Walt Whitman
Search Walt Whitman's quotes


Quote	Categories	Rating	Rate
"The eager and often inconsiderate appeals of reformers and revolutionists are indispensable to counterbalance the inertia and fossilism marking so large a part of human institutions."	Love, Conformity
"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You."	Miscellaneous
"You must not know too much, or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and water-craft; a certain free margin, and even vagueness - perhaps ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things..."	Nature
"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. To protect the weak and the minority from the impositions of the strong and the majority-to prevent any one from positively working to render the people unhappy, (if we may so express it,) to do the labor not of an officious inter-meddler in the affairs of men, but of a prudent watchman who prevents outrage-these are rather the proper duties of a government. Under the specious pretext of effecting "the happiness of the whole community," nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government have been carried through. The legislature may, and should, when such things fall in its way, lend its potential weight to the cause of virtue and happiness-but to legislate in direct behalf of those objects is never available, and rarely effects any even temporary benefit."	Government
"Love the earth and sun and animals, Despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, Stand up for the stupid and crazy, Devote your income and labor to others... And your very flesh shall be a great poem."	Comedy, Help
"Henceforth I ask not good-fortune, I myself am good-fortune."	Anti-God, Attitude
"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."	Economics, Democracy
"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least."	God
"The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual - namely to You."	Quotations

Browse Walt Whitman quotes by category:

Anti-God	Attitude	Comedy
Conformity	Democracy	Economics
God	Government	Help
Love	Miscellaneous	Nature
Quotations