Geburtsdatum | Montag, 31. Mai 1819 |
Geburtsort | West Hills, New York, U.S. |
Todesort | Camden,_New_Jersey |
Sternzeichen | |
Beschreibung | Walter Whitman (/ˈhwɪtmən/; 31. Mai 1819 - 26. März 1892) war ein amerikanischer Dichter, Essayist und Journalist. Als Humanist war er Teil des Übergangs zwischen Transzendentalismus und Realismus, wobei er beide Ansichten in seine Werke einfließen ließ. Whitman gehört zu den einflussreichsten Dichtern des amerikanischen Kanons und wird oft als Vater des freien Verses bezeichnet. Sein Werk war zu seiner Zeit umstritten, insbesondere seine 1855 erschienene Gedichtsammlung Leaves of Grass, die wegen ihrer unverhohlenen Sinnlichkeit als obszön bezeichnet wurde. |
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.
Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
We convince by our presence.
I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?
I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
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.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.
Produce great men, the rest follows.
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.
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.
I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game.
Freedom - to walk free and own no superior.
After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains.
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.
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences.
The future is no more uncertain than the present.
