Have you reckoned'd a thousand acres much? Have you reckoned'd the earth much? Have you practice'd so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems? Stop this day and night with me, and you shall possess the origin of all poems, You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left), You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the specters in books, You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me, You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.

— Walt Whitman

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

— Walt Whitman

Here are the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems

— Walt Whitman

Here is the test of wisdom, Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul.

— Walt Whitman

I act as the tongue of you, ... tied in your mouth. . . . In mine, it begins to be loosened.

— Walt Whitman

I am as bad as the worst but thank God I am as good as the best.

— Walt Whitman

I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.

— Walt Whitman

I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness. All seems beautiful to me. Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me.

— Walt Whitman

I am of old and young, of the foolish as much as the wise, Regardless of others, ever regarded of others, Maternal as well as paternal, a child as well as a man, Stuffed with the stuff that is course, and stuffed with the stuff that is fine, one of the nation, of many nations, the smallest the same and the largest

— Walt Whitman

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.

— Walt Whitman