Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons.
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.
Oxen that rattle the yoke and chain or halt in the leafy shade, what is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life.
Poets to come! orators, singers, musicians to come! Not to-day is to justify me and answer what I am for, But you, a new brood, native, athletic, continental, greater than before known, Arouse! for you must justify me. I myself but write one or two indicative words for the future, I but advance a moment only to wheel and hurry back in the darkness.
I swear to you the architects shall appear without fall, I swear to you they will understand you and justify you, The greatest among them shall be he who best knows you, and encloses all and is faithful to all, He and the rest shall not forget you, they shall perceive that you are not an iota less than they, You shall be fully glorified in them.
And as to you life, I reckon you are the leavings of many deaths, No doubt I have died myself ten thousand times before.
A great city is that which has the greatest men and women.
I speak the password primeval.
The future is no more uncertain than the present.
I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.
Re-examine all that you have been told.
To have great poets, there must be great audiences.
Oh while I live, to be the ruler of life, not a slave, to meet life as a powerful conqueror, and nothing exterior to me will ever take command of me.
All truths wait in all things.
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.
The Americans of all nations at any time upon the earth have probably the fullest poetical nature. The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
Beginning my studies the first step pleas'd me so much, The mere fact consciousness, these forms, the power of motion, The least insect or animal, the senses, eyesight, love, The first step I say awed me and pleas'd me so much, I have hardly gone and hardly wish'd to go any farther, But stop and loiter all the time to sing it in ecstatic songs.
There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius.
The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem.
If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred.
The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
Poetic style, when address'd to the Soul, is less definite form, outline, sculpture, and becomes vista, music, half-tints, and even less than half- tints. True, it may be architecture; but again it may be the forest wild-wood, or the best effects thereof, at twilight, the waving oaks and cedars in the wind, and the impalpable odor.
To a Certain Cantatrice Here, take this gift, I was reserving it for some hero, speaker, or general, One who should serve the good old cause, the great idea, the progress and freedom of the race, Some brave confronter of despots, some daring rebel; But I see that what I was reserving belongs to you just as much as to any.
I am not contain'd between my hat and my boots.
To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.
Produce great men, the rest follows.
All forces have been steadily employ'd to complete and delight me, Now on this spot I stand with my robust soul.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
Know'st thou not there is but one theme for ever-enduring bards? And that is the theme of War, the fortune of battles, The making of perfect soldiers.
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Give me the splendid, silent sun with all his beams full-dazzling.
The souls moving along ... are they invisible while the least atom of the stones is visible?
After all, the great lesson is that no special natural sights---not Alps, Niagara, Yosemite or anything else---is more grand or more beautiful than the ordinary sunrise and sunset, earth and sky, the common trees and grass.
Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.
Language is not an abstract construction of the learned, or of dictionary-makers, but is something arising out of the work, needs, ties, joys, affections, tastes, of long generations of humanity, and has its bases broad and low, close to the ground.
The smallest sprout shows there is really no death.
The words of true poems are the tuft and final applause of science.
Every existence has its idiom, every thing and idiom and tongue.
The real war will never get in the books.
I sound my barbaric yawp over the rooftops of the world.
The habit of giving only enhances the desire to give.
Failing to fetch me at first, keep encouraged. Missing me one place, search another. I stop somewhere waiting for you.
I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least.
I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice, I hear all sounds running together, combined, fused, flowing, sounds of the city, sounds out of the city, sounds of the day and night.
It is not they who give the life, it is you who give the life, Leaves are not more shed from the trees, or trees from the earth, than they are shed out of you.
These are the days that must happen to you.
If any thing is sacred, the human body is sacred.
Their Presidents shall not be their common referee so much as their poets shall.
The memory of a particular image is but regret for a particular moment, and houses, roads, avenues are as fugitive, alas, as the years.
