"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."
"I celebrate myself, And what I assume you shall assume, For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."
"I have learned that to be with those I like is enough."
"What is independence? Freedom from all laws or bonds except those of one's own being, control'd by the universal ones."
"Answer That you are here - -that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse."
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself. (I am large, I contains multitudes)."
"If anything is sacred the human body is sacred."
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself; I am large, I contain multitudes."
"After you have exhausted what there is in business, politics, conviviality, and so on - have found that none of these finally satisfy, or permanently wear - what remains? Nature remains."
"Now I see the secret of the making of the best persons. It is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth."
"I will go to the bank by the wood and become undisguised and naked."
"In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience."
"I bequeath myself to the earth, to grow from the grass I love; if you want me again, look for me under your bootsoles."
"From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines, Going where I list, my own master total and absolute, Listening to others, considering well what they say, Pausing, searching, receiving, contemplating, Gently, but with undeniable will,"
"The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing."
"To have great poets, there must be great audiences too."
"There is no week, nor day, nor hour, when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their supreme confidence in themselves - and lose their roughness and spirit of defiance."
"Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes)."
"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?"
"I send no agent or medium, offer no representative of value,"
"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."
"If anything is sacred the human body is sacred."
"Never before did I get so close to Nature; never before did she come so close to me... Nature was naked, and I was also... Sweet, sane, still Nakedness in Nature! - ah if poor, sick, prurient humanity in cities might really know you once more! Is not nakedness the indecent? No, not inherently. It is your thought, your sophistication, your fear, your respectability, that is indecent. There come moods when these clothes of ours are not only too irksome to wear, but are themselves indecent. Perhaps indeed he or she to whom the free exhilarating extasy of nakedness in Nature has never been eligible (and how many thousands there are!) has not really known what purity is--nor what faith or art or health really is."
"My final merit I refuse you, I refuse putting from me what I really am, Encompass worlds but never try to encompass me, I crowd your sleekest and best by simply looking toward you. Writing and talk do not prove me, I carry the plenum of proof in my face,"
"The future is no more uncertain than the present."