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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.
Walt Whitman -
Many a good man I have seen go under.
Walt Whitman
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Sure as the most certain sure .... plumb in the uprights, well entreated, braced in the beams, Stout as a horse, affectionate, haughty, electrical, I and this mystery we stand. Clear and sweet is my soul .... and clear and sweet is all that is not my soul, Lack one lacks both .... and the unseen is proved by the seen Till that becomes unseen and receives proof in its turn. To elaborate is no avail .... Learned and unlearned feel that it is so.
Walt Whitman -
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars, And the pismire is equally perfect, and a grain of sand, and the egg of the wren, And the tree toad is a chef-d'oeurve for the highest, And the running blackberry would adorn the parlors of heaven, And the narrowest hinge in my hand puts to scorn all machinery, And the cow crunching with depress'd head surpasses any statue, And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels!
Walt Whitman -
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.
Walt Whitman -
I sing the body that is electric! I celebrate the Self yet to be unveiled!
Walt Whitman -
I wear my hat as I please, indoors or out.
Walt Whitman -
Lo, the most excellent sun so calm and haughty, The violet and purple morn with just-felt breezes, The gentle soft-born measureless light, The miracle spreading bathing all, the fulfill'd noon, The coming eve delicious, the welcome night and the stars, Over my cities shining all, enveloping man and land.
Walt Whitman
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O America! Because you build for mankind I build for you.
Walt Whitman -
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.
Walt Whitman -
It is only the novice in political economy who thinks it is the duty of government to make its citizens happy - government has no such office.
Walt Whitman -
Camden was originally an accident, but I shall never be sorry I was left over in Camden. It has brought me blessed returns.
Walt Whitman -
But where is what I started for so long ago? And why is it yet unfound?
Walt Whitman -
Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything.
Walt Whitman
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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.
Walt Whitman -
In all people I see myself - none more, and not one a barleycorn less; And the good or bad I say of myself, I say of them.
Walt Whitman -
All architecture is what you do to it when you look upon it.
Walt Whitman -
I will You, in all, Myself, with promise to never desert you, To which I sign my name.
Walt Whitman -
The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, and the sunlight of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity-nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness.
Walt Whitman -
This is what you should 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 what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.
Walt Whitman
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O Earth, that hast no voice, confide to me a voice! O harvest of my lands! O boundless summer growths! O lavish, brown, parturient earth! O infinite, teeming womb! A verse to seek, to see, to narrate thee.
Walt Whitman -
I know perfectly well my own egotism.
Walt Whitman -
From this hour, freedom! Going where I like, my own master.
Walt Whitman -
Why are there men and women that while they are nigh me the sunlight expands my blood? Why when they leave me do my pennants of joy sink flat and lank?
Walt Whitman