Skip to content

In this broad earth of ours,
Amid the measureless grossness and the slag,
Enclosed and safe within its central heart,
Nestles the seed perfection.

— Walt Whitman Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Another quote →

Topics

Character

More quotes by Walt Whitman

I think of few heroic actions, which cannot be traced to the artistical impulse. He who does great deeds, does them from his innate sensitiveness to moral beauty.

Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

Poetry (like a grand personality) is a growth of many generations — many rare combinations.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.

Complete Prose Works (1892)

To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love.

Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed (1919)

All Walt Whitman quotes →

You may also like

Men accept servility in order to acquire wealth; as if they could acquire anything of their own when they cannot even assert that they belong to themselves.

Étienne de La Boétie Discourse on Voluntary Servitude (1548)

The confusion of marriage with morality has done more to destroy the conscience of the human race than any other single error.

George Bernard Shaw Man and Superman (1903)

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.

C. S. Lewis God in the Dock (1970)

Affectation hides three times as many virtues as charity does sins.

Horace Mann Thoughts Selected from the Writings of Horace Mann (1867)

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: Walt Whitman (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.