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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 -
I refuse putting from me the best that I am.
Walt Whitman
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Society waits unformed and is between things ended and things begun.
Walt Whitman -
To have great poets, there must be great audiences.
Walt Whitman -
The real war will never get in the books.
Walt Whitman -
And I will show that nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
Walt Whitman -
The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it.
Walt Whitman -
Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all.
Walt Whitman
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The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman: if it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the whole world.
Walt Whitman -
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
Walt Whitman -
The wild gander leads his flock through the cool night, Ya-honk! he says, and sounds it down to me like an invitation: The pert may suppose it meaningless, but I listen closer, I find its purpose and place up there toward the November sky.
Walt Whitman -
Lo! the moon ascending!Up from the East, the silvery round moon;Beautiful over the house-tops, ghastly, phantom moon;Immense and silent moon.
Walt Whitman -
When I give I give myself.
Walt Whitman -
The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.
Walt Whitman
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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!
Walt Whitman -
I say the real and permanent grandeur of these States must be their religion.
Walt Whitman -
Peace is always beautiful.
Walt Whitman -
When lilacs last in the door-yard bloomed,And the great star early drooped in the western sky in the night,I mourned, and yet shall mourn with ever-returning spring.
Walt Whitman -
Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.
Walt Whitman -
I accept reality and dare not question it.
Walt Whitman
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Now obey thy cherished secret wish,Embrace thy friends-leave all in order;To port and hawser's tie no more returning,Depart upon thy endless cruise, old Sailor!
Walt Whitman -
I find no sweeter fat than sticks to my own bones.
Walt Whitman -
If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred.
Walt Whitman -
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Walt Whitman