I am as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best.
Be curious, not judgmental.
We convince by our presence.
Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.
When I give I give myself.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
I tramp a perpetual journey.
All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor.
Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself.
Whatever satisfies the soul is truth.
I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends.
Every moment of light and dark is a miracle.
Nothing can happen more beautiful than death.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
To me every hour of the light and dark is a miracle. Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.
I celebrate myself, and sing myself.
The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything.
I accept reality and dare not question it.
A morning glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?
Resist much, obey little.
I sound my barbaric yawp over the roofs of the world.
The whole theory of the universe is directed unerringly to one single individual.
If you done it, it ain't bragging.
I cannot be awake for nothing looks to me as it did before, Or else I am awake for the first time, and all before has been a mean sleep.
Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).
Re-examine all that you have been told... dismiss that which insults your soul.
Be curious, bot judgmental.
Freedom -- to walk free and own no superior.
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.
How beggarly appear arguments before a defiant deed!
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.
Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.
O lands! O all so dear to me -- what you are, I become part of that, whatever it is.
I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journey-work of the stars.
Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes.
And your very flesh shall be a great poem.
The real war will never get in the books.
Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely.
If you done it, it aint bragging.
Seeing, hearing, feeling, are miracles, and each part and tag of me is a miracle.
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero.
The shallow consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint.
The wise man sees in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.
The beautiful uncut hair of graves.
The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves.
The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity.
This face is a dog's snout sniffing for garbage, snakes nest in that mouth, I hear the sibilant threat.
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.
To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all.
The moon gives you light, And the bugles and the drums give you music, And my heart, O my soldiers, my veterans, My heart gives you love.
He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.
I heard what was said of the universe, heard it and heard it of several thousand years; it is middling well as far as it goes - but is that all?
There is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheeled universe.
Nothing endures but personal qualities.