Authors / Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman quotes

1819–1892 · American poet

Whitman kept rewriting one book, Leaves of Grass, for most of his life. His voice is huge, generous and contradictory — on purpose.

1 real · 2 not theirs

Really theirs

1 quotes traced to Walt Whitman's own work or a reliable witness.

Sourced
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Source: Song of Myself, §51 (1855)

Not theirs

2 famous lines credited to Walt Whitman that are misquoted, unsourced or belong to someone else.

No source found
Keep your face always toward the sunshine — and shadows will fall behind you.

The trail: Widely credited to Whitman, but not in Leaves of Grass or his prose.

Not theirs
Be curious, not judgmental.

Actually: Not Whitman. The line went viral from the TV series Ted Lasso (2020), which credited him.