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I say no body of men are fit to make Presidents, judges and generals, unless they themselves supply the best specimens of the same and that supplying one or two such specimens illuminates the whole body for a thousand years.

Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: May 31
Died: 1892
Died: March 26
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
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Poet
Writer
West Hills
New York
Walter Whitman
Men
Thousand
Generals
President
Presidents
Two
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Body
Supply
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Whole
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Illuminates

More quotes by Walt Whitman

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I sing the body that is electric! I celebrate the Self yet to be unveiled!
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The genius of the United States is not best or most in its executives or legislatures, nor in its ambassadors or authors or colleges, or churches, or parlors, nor even in its newspapers or inventors, but always most in the common people.
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When I undertake to tell the best, I find I cannot. My tongue is ineffectual on its pivots, My breath will not be obedient to its organs, I become a dumb man.
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Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
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The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
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A man is a great thing upon the earth and through eternity but every jot of the greatness of man is unfolded out of woman.
Walt Whitman
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I speak the password primeval I give the sign of democracy.
Walt Whitman
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I keep thinking about you every few minutes all day.
Walt Whitman
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I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone, I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again, I am to see to it that I do not lose you.
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...of two simple men I saw today on the pier in the midst of the crowd, parting the parting of dear friends, the one to remain hung on the other's neck and passionately kissed him. While the one to depart tightly pressed the one to remain in his arms.
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All the things of the universe are perfect miracles, each as profound as any.
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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.
Walt Whitman
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There is no place like it, no place with an atom of its glory, pride, and exultancy. It lays its hand upon a man's bowels he grows drunk with ecstasy he grows young and full of glory, he feels that he can never die.
Walt Whitman
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Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
Walt Whitman
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To me the sea is a continual miracle The fishes that swim - the rocks - the motion of the waves - the ships, with men in them, what stranger miracles are there?
Walt Whitman
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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
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I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
Walt Whitman
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The question, O me! so sad, recurring - What good amid these, O me, O life? That you are here - that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.
Walt Whitman
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It is a beautiful truth that all men contain something of the artist in them. And perhaps it is the case that the greatest artists live and die, the world and themselves alike ignorant what they possess.
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Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has.
Walt Whitman