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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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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
Economy
Happy
Political
Novice
Government
Novices
Make
Thinks
Thinking
Citizens
Office
Duty

More quotes by Walt Whitman

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Have you reckon’d a thousand acres much? have you reckon’d the earth much? Have you practis’d so long to learn to read? Have you felt so proud to get at the meaning of poems?
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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.
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I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
Walt Whitman
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Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
Walt Whitman
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There was a child went forth every day, And the first object he looked upon, that object he became.
Walt Whitman
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I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost . The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again.
Walt Whitman
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The past, the future, majesty, love - if they are vacant of you, you are vacant of them.
Walt Whitman
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Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
Walt Whitman
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Will you seek afar off? You surely come back at last, In things best known to you, finding the best, or as good as the best, In folks nearest to you finding the sweetest, strongest, lovingest Happiness, knowledge, not in another place, but this place-not for another hour, but this hour.
Walt Whitman
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We convince by our presence.
Walt Whitman
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Love, that is day and night - love, that is sun and moon and stars, Love, that is crimson, sumptuous, sick with perfume, no other words but words of love, no other thought but love.
Walt Whitman
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People who serve you without love get even behind your back.
Walt Whitman
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Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all.
Walt Whitman
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I speak the password primeval I give the sign of democracy.
Walt Whitman
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Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
Walt Whitman
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I am an acme of things accomplished, and I an encloser of things to be.
Walt Whitman
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Joy, shipmate, joy! (Pleased to my soul at death I cry), Our life is closed, our life begins, The long, long anchorage we leave, The ship is clear at last, she leaps! She swiftly courses from the shore, Joy, shipmate, joy!
Walt Whitman
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The city sleeps and the country sleeps, the living sleep for their time, the dead sleep for their time, the old husband sleeps by his wife and the young husband sleeps by his wife and these tend inward to me, and I tend outward to them, and such as it is to be of these more or less I am, and of these one and all I weave the song of myself.
Walt Whitman
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This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
Walt Whitman
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I believe in the flesh and the appetites, Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touched from, The scent of these armpits aroma finer than prayer, This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.
Walt Whitman