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I like the scientific spirit—the holding off, the being sure but not too sure, the willingness to surrender ideas when the evidence is against them: this is ultimately fine—it always keeps the way beyond open—always gives life, thought, affection, the whole man, a chance to try over again after a mistake—after a wrong guess.

— Walt Whitman

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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)

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The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents.

H. P. Lovecraft The Call of Cthulhu (1926)

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.

Albert Einstein Moral Decay (1937)

Science and religion are two human enterprises sharing many features.

Freeman Dyson Infinite in All Directions (1988)

To doubt everything or to believe everything are two equally convenient solutions; both dispense with the necessity of reflection.

Henri Poincaré Science and Hypothesis (1901)

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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.