"For we cannot tarry here,We must march my darlings, we must bear the brunt of danger,We, the youthful sinewy races, all the rest on us depend, Pioneers! O pioneers!"

"Here the frailest leaves of me and yet my strongest lasting, Here I shade and hide my thoughts, I myself do not expose them, And yet they expose me more than all my other poems."

"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."

"O you youths, Western youths,So impatient, full of action, full of manly pride and friendship,Plain I see you Western youths, see you tramping with the foremost,Pioneers! O pioneers!"

"It is native personality and that alone that endows a man to stand before presidents or generals or in any distinguished collection with aplomb -and not culture or any intellect whatever."

"This the touch of my lips to yours, this the murmur of yearning, This the far-off depth and height reflecting my own face, This the thoughtful merge of myself, and the outlet again. Do you guess I have some intricate purpose? Well I have, for the Fourth-month showers have, and the mica on the side of a rock has. Do you take it I would astonish? Does the daylight astonish? does the early redstart twittering through the woods? Do I astonish more than they? This hour I tell things in confidence, I might not tell everybody, but I will tell you."

"A great city is that which has the greatest men and women."

"O to be self-balanced for contingencies, to confront night, storms, hunger, ridicule, accidents, rebuffs, as the trees and animals do."

"Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, When I give I give myself."

"Every moment of light and dark is a miracle."

"This is thy hour O Soul, thy free flight into the wordless, Away from books, away from art, the day erased, the lesson done,Thee fully forth emerging, silent, gazing, pondering the themes thou lovest best. Night, sleep, and the stars."

"Mark the spirit of invention everywhere, thy rapid patents, Thy continual workshops, foundries, risen or rising, See, from their chimneys how the tall flame-fires stream."

"The words of my book nothing, the drift of it everything."

"I will leave all and come and make the hymns of you, None has understood you, but I understand you, None has done justice to you, you have not done justice to yourself, None but has found you imperfect, I only find no imperfection in you, None but would subordinate you, I only am he who will never consent to subordinate you, I only am he who places over you no master, owner, better, God, beyond what waits intrinsically in yourself."

"Oh captain my captain."

"Song of myselfSmile O voluptuous cool-breath'd earth! Earth of the slumbering and liquid trees! Earth of departed sunset--earth of the mountains misty-topt! Earth of the vitreous pour of the full moon just tinged with blue! Earth of shine and dark mottling the tide of the river! Earth of the limpid gray of clouds brighter and clearer for my sake! Far-swooping elbow'd earth--rich apple-blossom'd earth! Smile, for your lover comes."

"The art of art, the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters, is simplicity."

"The dirtiest book of all is the expurgated book."

"Songs of myselfI am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, 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 new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,.."

"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."

"Some people are so much sunshine to the square inch."

"I do not say these things for a dollar, or to fill up the time while I wait for a boat."

"I celebrate myself, and sing myself, And what I assume you shall assume,For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you."

"Give me such shows--give me the streets of Manhattan!"

"I think I will do nothing for a long time but listen,And accrue what I hear into myself...and let sound contribute toward me."

"Come, said my Soul. Such verses for my Body let us write, (for we are one,)That should I after death invisibly return,Or, long, long hence, in other spheres,There to some group of mates the chants resuming,(Tallying Earth's soil, trees, winds, tumultuous waves,)Ever with pleas'd smiles I may keep on,Ever and ever yet the verses owning - as, first, I here and now,Signing for Soul and Body, set to them my name."

"I exist as I am that is enough If no other in the world be aware I sit content And if each and all be aware I sit content."

"Sail Forth- Steer for the deep waters only. Reckless O soul, exploring. I with thee and thou with me. For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared go. And we will risk the ship, ourselves, and all."

"We convince by our presence."

"What is that you express in your eyes? It seems to me more than all the print I have read in my life."

"Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed."

"Over the mountain growths, disease and sorrow, An uncaught bird is ever hovering, hovering,High in the purer, happier air."

"I may be as bad as the worst, but, thank God, I am as good as the best."

"There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius."

"The untold want, by life and land ne'er granted,Now, Voyager, sail thou forth, to seek and find."

"I say to mankind, Be not curious about God. For I, who am curious about each, am not curious about God - I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least."

"This is the city, and I am one of the citizens/Whatever interests the rest interests me."

"What stays with you longest and deepest? Of curious panics, of hard-fought engagements or sieges tremendous what deepest remains?"

"The art of art the glory of expression and the sunshine of the light of letters is simplicity: nothing is better than simplicity."

"ThoughtOf equality- as if it harm'd me, giving others the same chancesand rights as myself- as if it were not indispensable to my own rights that others possess the same."

"Have you learned the lessons only of those who admired you, and were tender with you, and stood aside for you? Have you not learned great lessons from those who braced themselves against you, and disputed passage with you?"

"Here or henceforward it is all the same to me, I accept Time absolutely."

"If you want me again look for me under your boot soles."

"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 States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved,Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty."

"The United States themselves are essentially the greatest poem."

"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."

"Camerado this is no book. Who touches this touches a man."

"I depart as air, I shake my white locks at the runway sun, I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again look for me under your boot soles. You will hardly know who I am or what I mean. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."

"One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself, / And whether I come to my own to-day or in ten thousand or ten / million years, / I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness I can wait."