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Everybody is writing, writing, writing - worst of all, writing poetry. It'd be better if the whole tribe of the scribblers - every damned one of us - were sent off somewhere with tool chests to do some honest work.

Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: May 31
Died: 1892
Died: March 26
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Nurse
Poet
Writer
West Hills
New York
Walter Whitman
Work
Tools
Scribblers
Every
Poetry
Tribe
Honest
Damned
Worst
Tribes
Everybody
Chests
Better
Tool
Whole
Sent
Writing
Somewhere

More quotes by Walt Whitman

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Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love But now I think there is no unreturn'd love—the pay is certain, one way or another (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd Yet out of that, I have written these songs.)
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Oh captain my captain
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Has anyone supposed it lucky to be born? I hasten to inform him or her that it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.
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I tramp a perpetual journey.
Walt Whitman
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Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won.
Walt Whitman
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Out of the cradle endlessly rocking, Out of the mocking bird's throat, the musical shuttle, . . . . A reminiscence sing.
Walt Whitman
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My ties and ballasts leave me - I travel - I sail - My elbows rest in the sea-gaps. I skirt the sierras. My palms cover continents - I am afoot with my vision.
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I do not doubt but the majest and beauty of the world are latent in any iota of the world I do not doubt there is far more in trivialities, insects, vulgar persons, slaves, dwarfs, weeds, rejected refuse than I have supposed.
Walt Whitman
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When I give, I give myself.
Walt Whitman
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But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?
Walt Whitman
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I act as the tongue of you, ... tied in your mouth . . . . in mine it begins to be loosened.
Walt Whitman
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The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
Walt Whitman
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All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
Walt Whitman
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Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you. You must travel it by yourself. It is not far. It is within reach. Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. Perhaps it is everywhere - on water and land.
Walt Whitman
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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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O lands! O all so dear to me - what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.
Walt Whitman
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The work for giants...to serve well the guns!
Walt Whitman
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I open my scuttle at night and see the far-sprinkled systems, All all I see multiplied as high as I can cipher edge but the rim of the farther systems. Wider and wider they spread, expanding, always expanding, Outward and outward and forever outward.
Walt Whitman
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Over all the sky - the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded with eternal stars.
Walt Whitman
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Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?
Walt Whitman