"The real war will never get in the books."

"When I heard the learn'd astronomer; When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me; When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them; When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself, In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

"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."

"Speech is the twin of my vision, it is unequal to measure itself, it provokes me forever, it says sarcastically, Walt you contain enough, why don't you let it out then?"

"I see great things in baseball. It's our game - the American game."

"You sea! I resign myself to you also-I guess what you mean, I behold from the beach your crooked fingers, I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me.We must have a turn together,I undress, hurry me out of sight of the land,Cushion me soft, rock me billowy drowse,Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you."

"All faults may be forgiven of him who has perfect candor."

"My words itch at your ears till you understand them."

"Freedom - to walk free and own no superior."

"To touch my person to some one else's is about as much as I can stand."

"Only themselves understand themselves and the like of themselves,As souls only understand souls."

"You must not know too much or be too precise or scientific about birds and trees and flowers and watercraft; a certain free-margin , or even vagueness - ignorance, credulity - helps your enjoyment of these things."

"They do not sweat and whine about their condition, they do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins, they do not make me sick discussing their duty to God, not one is dissatisfied, not one is demented with the mania of owning things, not one kneels to another, nor to his kind that lived thousands of years ago."

"Why should I be afraid to trust myself to you? I am not afraid, I have been well brought forward by you..."

"In the faces of men and women I see God and in my own face in the glass I find letters from God dropt in the street and every one is signed by God's name and I leave them where they are for I know that wheresoever I go others will punctually come for ever and ever."

"Have you heard that it was good to gain the day? I also say it is good to fall, battles are lost in the same spirit in which they are won."

"Behold! I do not give lectures on a little charity. When I give I give myself."

"Song of myselfA child said What is the grass? fetching it to me with full hands; How could I answer the child? I do not know what it is any more than he. I guess it must be the flag of my disposition, out of hopeful green stuff woven. Or I guess it is the handkerchief of the Lord, A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt, Bearing the owner's name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose? Or I guess the grass is itself a child, the produced babe of the vegetation."

"In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word."

"When the full-grown poet came,Out spake pleased Nature (the round impassive globe, with all its shows of day and night,) saying, He is mine;But out spake too the Soul of man, proud, jealous and unreconciled, Nay, he is mine alone;- Then the full-grown poet stood between the two, and took each by the hand;And to-day and ever so stands, as blender, uniter, tightly holding hands,Which he will never release until he reconciles the two,And wholly and joyously blends them."

"Simplicity is the glory of expression."

"To drive free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts. One brief house of madness and joy!"

"Vivas to those who have fail'd!And to those whose war-vessels sank in the sea!And to those themselves who sank in the sea!And to all generals that lost engagements, and all overcome heroes!And the numberless unknown heroes equal to the greatest heroes known!"

"If anything is sacred, the human body is sacred."

"I Think it is lost.....but nothing is ever lost nor can be lost .The body sluggish, aged, cold, the ember left from earlier fires shall duly flame again."

"To me, every cubic inch of space is a miracle."

"I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken."

"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."

"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."

"Great is language . . . . it is the mightiest of the sciences,It is the fulness and color and form and diversity of the earth . . . . and of men and women . . . . and of all qualities and processes;It is greater than wealth . . . . it is greater than buildings or ships or religions or paintings or music."

"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."

"Nothing can happen more beautiful than death."

"The proof of a poet is that his country absorbs him as affectionately as he has absorbed it."

"Afoot and light-hearted I take to the open road.Healthy, free, the world before me.The long brown path before me leading me wherever I choose.Henceforth, I ask not good fortune, I myself am good fortune.Henceforth, I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing."

"There is no week nor day nor hour when tyranny may not enter upon this country, if the people lose their roughness and spirit of defiance."

"Note, to-day, an instructive, curious spectacle and conflict. Science, (twin, in its fields, of Democracy in its)-Science, testing absolutely all thoughts, all works, has already burst well upon the world-a sun, mounting, most illuminating, most glorious-surely never again to set. But against it, deeply entrench'd, holding possession, yet remains, (not only through the churches and schools, but by imaginative literature, and unregenerate poetry,) the fossil theology of the mythic-materialistic, superstitious, untaught and credulous, fable-loving, primitive ages of humanity."

"The words of the true poems give you more than poems, they give you to form for yourself poems, religions, politics, war, peace, behavior, histories, essays, daily life, & everything else, they balance the ranks, colors, races, creeds, and the sexes, they do not seek beauty, they are sought, forever touching them or close upon them follows beauty, longing, fain, love-sick. They prepare for death, yet they are not the finish, but rather the outset, they bring none of his or her terminus or to be content & full, whom they take they take into space to behold the birth of the stars, to learn one of the meanings, to launch off with absolute faith, to sweep through the ceaseless rings & never be quiet again."

"The beautiful uncut hair of graves."

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

"Silence? What can New York-noisy, roaring, rumbling, tumbling, bustling, story, turbulent New York-have to do with silence? Amid the universal clatter, the incessant din of business, the all swallowing vortex of the great money whirlpool-who has any, even distant, idea of the profound repose......of silence?"

"Whoever is not in his coffin and the dark grave, let him know he has enough."

"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."

"Viewed freely, the English language is the accretion and growth of every dialect, race, and range of time, and is both the free and compacted composition of all."

"I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends."

"Why are there trees I never walk under but large and melodious thoughts descend upon me?"

"O the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning!It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,I will have thousands of globes and all time."

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

"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."

"Peace is always beautiful."

"A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books."