1. ”A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.”
2. “And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.”
3. “As Adam early in the morning,
Walking forth from the bower refresh’d with sleep,Behold me where I pass, hear my voice, approach,
Touch me, touch the palm of your hand to my body as I pass,
Be not afraid of my body.”
4. “A vast similitude interlocks all,
All spheres, grown, ungrown, small, large, suns, moons, planets, comets, asteroids,
All distances, however wide,
All distances of time - all inanimate forms,
All Souls - all living bodies, though they be ever so different, or in different worlds,
All gaseous, watery, vegetable, mineral processes - the fishes, the brutes,
All men and women - me also,
All nations, colors, barbarisms, civilizations, languages,
All identities that have existed, or may exist, on this globe or any globe,
All lives and deaths - all of past, present and future,
This vast similitude spans them, and always has spanned, and shall forever span them, and compactly hold them.”
5. “Clear and sweet is my soul, and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul.”
6. “Closer yet I approach you,
What thought you have of me now, I had as much of you - I laid in my stores in advance,
I consider’d long and seriously of you before you were born.
Who was to know what should come home to me?
Who knows but I am enjoying this?
Who knows, for all the distance, but I am as good as looking at you now, for all you cannot see me?”
7. “Considering Language then as some mighty potentate, into the majestic audience-hall of the monarch ever enters a personage like one of Shakspere’s clowns, and takes position there, and plays a part even in the stateliest ceremonies. Such is Slang, or indirection, an attempt of common humanity to escape from bald literalism, and express itself illimitably, which in highest walks produces poets and poems, and doubtless in pre-historic times gave the start to, and perfected, the whole immense tangle of the old mythologies.”
8. “Divine am I inside and out, and I make holy whatever I touch or am touch’d from,The scent of these arm-pits aroma finer than prayer,
This head more than churches, bibles, and all the creeds.”
9. ”Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contains multitudes).”
10. “Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.”
11. "For if the proper study of mankind is man, it is evidently more sensible to occupy yourself with the coherent, substantial and significant creatures of fiction than with the irrational and shadowy figures of real life."
12. "From this hour I ordain myself loosed from limits and imaginary lines."
13. “Get a good idea and stay with it. Dog it, and work at it until it's done right.”
14. “Give me the splendid silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.”
15. “Has any one supposed it lucky to be born?
I hasten to inform him or her it is just as lucky to die, and I know it.”
16. “He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.”
17. “I am an acme of things accomplish’d, and I an encloser of things to be.”
18. “I am for those who believe in loose delights, I share the midnight orgies of young men,
I dance with the dancers and drink with the drinkers,
The echoes ring with our indecent calls, I pick out some low person for my dearest friend,
He shall be lawless, rude, illiterate, he shall be one condemned by others for deeds done,
I will play a part no longer, why should I exile myself from my companions?
O you shunn’d persons, I at least do not shun you,I come forthwith in your midst, I will be your poet,
I will be more to you than to any of the rest.”
19. “I am larger, better than I thought,
I did not know I held so much goodness.
All seems beautiful to me,
I can repeat over to men and women You have done such good to me I would do the same to you,
I will recruit for myself and you as I go,
I will scatter myself among men and women as I go,
I will toss a new gladness and roughness among them,
Whoever denies me it shall not trouble me,
Whoever accepts me he or she shall be blessed and shall bless me.”
20. “I am not an earth nor an adjunct of an earth,
I am the mate and companion of people, all just as immortal and fathomless as myself,
(They do not know how immortal, but I know.)”
21. “I am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul,
The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me,
The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into a new tongue.”
22. “I am the poet of the woman the same as the man,
And I say it is as great to be woman as to be a man,
And I say there is nothing greater than the mother of men.”
23. “I am willing to be understood by the growth of the taste of myself,
Rejecting none, permitting all.”
24. ”I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.”
25. “I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love,
If you want me again look for me under your boot-soles.
You will hardly know who I am or what I mean,
But I shall be good health to you nevertheless,
And filter and fibre your blood.
Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged,
Missing me one place search another,
I stop somewhere waiting for you.”
21. “I celebrate myself, and sing myself,
And what I assume you shall assume,
For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.”
26. “I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”
27. “I do not trouble my spirit to vindicate itself or be understood.”
28. "I dream'd in a dream I saw a city invincible to the attacks of the whole of the rest of the earth,
I dream'd that was the new city of Friends."
29. “I exist as I am, that is enough,
If no other in the world be aware I sit content,
And if each and all be aware I sit content.”
30. “If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.”
31. “If I worship one thing more than another it shall be the spread of my own body, or any part of it.”
32. “I greet you at the beginning of a great career, which must yet have had a long foreground somewhere, for such a start. I rubbed my eyes a little to see if this sunbeam were no illusion; but the solid sense of the book is a sober certainty.”
33. “I have heard what the talkers were talking, the talk of the beginning and the end,
But I do not talk of the beginning or the end.”
34. “I have no mockings or arguments, I witness and wait.”
35. “I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And I say to any man or woman, Let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.”
36. “I loafe, and invite my soul,
I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.”
37. “I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.”
38. "I no doubt deserve my enemies,
I can't believe I deserve my friends."
39. “I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.”
40. “I think I could turn and live with animals, they’re so placid and self-contain’d,I stand and look at them long and long.
They do not sweat and whine about their condition,
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins,
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God,
Not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things,
Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago,
Not one is respectable or unhappy over the whole earth.”
41. “Judging from the main portions of the history of the world, so far, justice is always in jeopardy.”
42. “Let that which stood in front go behind, let that which was behind advance to the front, let bigots, fools, unclean persons, offer new propositions, let the old propositions be postponed.”
43. “Long and long has the grass been growing,
Long and long has the rain been falling,
Long has the globe been rolling round.”
44. “Meditating among liars, and retreating sternly into myself, I see that there are really no liars or lies after all,
And nothing fails its perfect return—And that what are called lies are perfect returns,
And that each thing exactly represents itself, and what has preceded it,
And that the truth includes all, and is compact, just as much as space is compact,
And that there is no law or vacuum in the amount of the truth—but that all is truth without exception;
And henceforth I will go celebrate anything I see or am,
And sing and laugh, and deny nothing.”
45. "Nothing endures but personal qualities."
46. “Nothing is ever really lost, or can be lost, no birth, identity, form - no object in the world, nor life, nor any visible thing; appearance must not foil, nor shifted sphere confuse thy brain. Ample are time and space - ample the fields of Nature.”
47. “Not I, not any one else can travel the road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know,
Perhaps it is everywhere on water and on land.”
48. “Old age, calm, expanded,
broad with the haughty breadth
of the universe, old age flowing
free with the delicious
near-by freedom of death.”
49. “One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait.”
50. “O something unprov'd! something in a trance! / To escape utterly from others' anchors and holds! / To drive free! to love free! to dash reckless and dangerous! / To court destruction with taunts, with invitations! / To ascend, to leap to the heavens of the love indicated to me! / To rise thither with my inebriate soul! / To be lost if it must be so! / To feed the remainder of life with one hour of fulness and freedom! / With one brief hour of madness and joy.”
51. “Passing stranger! you do not know how longingly I look upon you,
You must be he I was seeking, or she I was seeking, (it comes to me as of a dream,)
I have somewhere surely lived a life of joy with you,
All is recall’d as we flit by each other, fluid, affectionate, chaste, matured,You grew up with me, were a boy with me or a girl with me,
I ate with you and slept with you, your body has become not yours only nor left my body mine only,
You give me the pleasure of your eyes, face, flesh, as we pass, you take of my beard, breast, hands, in return,
I am not to speak to you, I am to think of you when I sit alone or wake at night alone,
I am to wait, I do not doubt I am to meet you again,
I am to see to it that I do not lose you.”
52. "Perhaps the efforts of the true poets, founders, religions, literatures, all ages, have been, and ever will be, our time and times to come, essentially the same--to bring people back from their present strayings and sickly abstractions, to the costless, average, divine, original concrete."
53. "Reexamine all that you have been told in school, or in church or in any book. Dismiss whatever insults your soul."
54. “Seeing, hearing and feeling are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.”
55. “Slang...is the wholesome fermentation or eructation of those processes eternally active in language, by which froth and specks are thrown up, mostly to pass away; though occasionally to settle and permanently chrystallize.”
56. “Stop this day and night with me and you shall possess the origin of all poems,
You shall possess the good of the earth and sun, (there are millions of suns left,)
You shall no longer take things at second or third hand, nor look through the eyes of the dead, nor feed on the spectres in books,
You shall not look through my eyes either, nor take things from me,
You shall listen to all sides and filter them from your self.”
57. “Stranger, if you passing meet me and desire to speak to me, why should you not speak to me? And why should I not speak to you?”
58. “The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.”
59. ”The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book.”
60. “The earth is rude, silent, incomprehensible at first;
Be not discouraged-- keep on-- there are divine things, well envelop'd;
I swear to you there are divine things more beautiful than words can tell.”
61. "The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing."
62. “There is an indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.”
63. “There was never any more inception than there is now,
Nor any more youth or age than there is now,
And will never be any more perfection than there is now,
Nor any more heaven or hell than there is now.”
64. “The song is to the singer, and comes back most to him,
The teaching is to the teacher, and comes back most to him,
The murder is to the murderer, and comes back most to him,
The theft is to the thief, and comes back most to him,
The love is to the lover, and comes back most to him,
The gift is to the giver, and comes back most to him - it cannot fail,
The oration is to the orator, the acting is to the actor and actress not to the audience,
And no man understands any greatness or goodness but his own, or the indication of his own.”
65. “This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless,
Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,
Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best,/
Night, sleep, death and the stars.”
66. ”This is what you shall do: Love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men... re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.”
67. “To have great poets, there must be great audiences too.”
68. “To me the converging objects of the universe perpetually flow, All are written to me, and I must get what the writing means.”
69. “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.”
70. “What do you suppose creation is?
What do you suppose will satisfy the soul, except to walk free and own no superior?
What do you suppose I would intimate to you in a hundred ways, but that man and woman is as good as God?
And that there is no God any more divine than Yourself?
And that that is what the oldest and newest myths finally mean?”
71. “What am I after all but a child, pleas’d with the sound of my own name? repeating it over and over;I stand apart to hear - it never tires me.
To you your name also;
Did you think there was nothing but two or three pronunciations in the sound of your name?”
72. “When he whom I love travels with me or sits a long while holding me by the hand,
When the subtle air, the impalpable, the sense that words and reason hold not, surround us and pervade us,
Then I am charged with untold and untellable wisdom, I am silent, I require nothing further,
I cannot answer the question of appearances or that of identity beyond the grave,
But I walk or sit indifferent, I am satisfied,
He ahold of my hand has completely satisfied me.”
73. ”When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figure, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.”
74. “Whoever you are! motion and reflection are especially for you,
The divine ship sails the divine sea for you.
Whoever you are! you are he or she for whom the earth is solid and liquid,
You are he or she for whom the sun and moon hang in the sky,
For none more than you are the present and the past,
For none more than you is immortality.”
75. “Whoever you are, now I place my hand upon you, that you be my poem,
I whisper with my lips close to your ear,
I have loved many women and men, but I love none better than you.”
76. “Why, who makes much of a miracle?
As to me I know nothing else but miracles-
To me every hour of night and day is a miracle,
Every cubic inch of space a miracle.”
77. ”Why are there trees I never walk under
But large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?”
78. "Youth, large, lusty, loving -- Youth, full of grace, force, fascination. Do you know that Old Age may come after you with equal grace, force, fascination? "
