This is what you shall do: Love the earth and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and the crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the young and with mothers of families, read these leaves in the open air every season of every year of your life, re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem and have the richest fluency not only in its own words but in the silent lines of its lips and face and between the lashes of your eyes and in every motion and joint of your body...

Do I contradict myself? Very well then I contradict myself, (I am large, I contain multitudes).

He most honors my style who learns under it to destroy the teacher.

What you are speaks so loudly that I can't hear what you're saying.

I ordain myself loosed from imaginary limits. From this hour I shall live as my own master - searching, receiving, listening - breaking the bonds that would hold me.

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

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

The fruition of beauty is no chance of hit or miss... it is inevitable as life.

Resist much, obey little.