A 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.

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in anybook, dismiss what insults your own soul, and your very flesh shall be a great poem.

The art of art... is simplicity.

I am wiser, better than I thought. I did not know I held so much greatness.

I have learned that to be with those I like is enough.

I believe a leaf of grass is no less than the journeywork of the stars.

Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to me.

A vast similitude interlocks all.

All goes onward and outward, nothing collapses, and to die is different from what anyone supposed, and far luckier.

And a mouse is miracle enough to stagger sextillions of infidels.

A new, undying order, dynasty, from age to age transmitted.

Answer That you are here--that life exists and identity, That the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.

Character and personal force are the only investments that are worth anything.

Do anything, but let it produce joy.

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

As for me, I know of nothing else but miracles.

Peace is always beautiful.

All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.

When I give, I give myself.

This is what you should do: love the earth and sun and the animals, despise riches, give alms to everyone that asks, stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God.

Free love? Is there any other kind of love?

Every cubic inch of space is a miracle.

Faith is the antiseptic of the soul.

To me, every hour of the day and night is an unspeakably perfect miracle.

Give me solitude—give me Nature—give me again, O Nature, your primal sanities!