Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

"Come, said my Soul Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)That should I after death invisibly return,Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,There to some group of mates the chants resuming,(Tallying Earth’s soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)Ever with pleas’d smiles I may keep on,Ever and ever yet the verses owning — as, first, I here and now,Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name,"

"not one escaped to tell the fall of Alamo,The hundred & fifty are dumb yet at Alamo."

"Battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."

"For we cannot tarry here,We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!"

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

"I believe in the flesh and the appetites; Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle. 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."

"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, and the stars."

"I too am not a bit tamed, I too am untranslatable, I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world."

"If you want me again look for me under your boot soles."

"Peace is always beautiful."

"Resist much, obey little."

"Here is the test of wisdom, Wisdom is not finally tested in schools, Wisdom cannot be pass’d from one having it to another not having it, Wisdom is of the soul, is not susceptible of proof, is its own proof, Applies to all stages and objects and qualities and is content, Is the certainty of the reality and immortality of things, and the excellence of things; Something there is in the float of the sight of things that provokes it out of the soul."

"Why should I wish to see God better than this day?I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass;I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is signed by God's name,And I leave them where they are,for I know that others will punctually come forever and ever."

"re-examine all you have been told in school or church or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul; and your very flesh shall be a great poem, and have the richest fluency, not only in its words, but in the silent lines of its lips and face, and between the lashes of your eyes, and in every motion and joint of your body.[From the preface to Leaves Grass]"

"Of Equality--as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chances and rights as myself--as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same."

"TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty."

"I am larger, better than I thought; I did not know I held so much goodness. All seems beautiful to me. Whoever denies me, it shall not trouble me; Whoever accepts me, he or she shall be blessed, and shall bless me."

"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."

"O Me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring; Of the endless trains of the faithless—of cities fill’d with the foolish; Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?) Of eyes that vainly crave the light—of the objects mean—of the struggle ever renew’d; Of the poor results of all—of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me; Of the empty and useless years of the rest—with the rest me intertwined; The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists, and identity; That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse."