Quote collection
494 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"A Song of the good green grass! A song no more of the city streets; A song of farms - a song of the soil of fields. A song with the smell of sun-dried hay, where the nimble pitchers handle the pitch-fork; A song tasting of new wheat, and of fresh-husk'd maize."
"Great is the faith of the flush of knowledge and of the investigation of the depths of qualities and things."
"I keep thinking about you every few minutes all day."
"The strongest and sweetest songs yet remain to be sung."
"Charity and personal force are the only investments worth anything."
"Over all the sky - the sky! Far, far out of reach, studded with eternal stars."
"I know perfectly well my own egotism."
"You will hardly know who I am or what I mean, But I shall be good health to you nevertheless, And filter and fibre your blood. Failing to fetch me at first keep encouraged, Missing me one place search another, I stop somewhere waiting for you."
"Other lands have their vitality in a few, a class, but we have it in the bulk of our people."
"I was in the midst of it all - saw war where war is worst - not on the battlefields, no - in the hospitals ... there I mixed with it: and now I say God damn the wars - allw ars: God damn every war: God damn 'em! God damn 'em!"
"The poet judges not as a judge judges but as the sun falling around a helpless thing."
"Oh, to be alive in such an age, when miracles are everywhere, and every inch of common air throbs a tremendous prophecy, of greater marvels yet to be."
"I will write the evangel-poem of comrades and of love."
"The smallest sprout shows there is really no death. And if ever there was it led forward life, and does not wait at the end to arrest it."
"To the real artist in humanity, what are called bad manners are often the most picturesque and significant of all."
"My ties and ballasts leave me - I travel - I sail - My elbows rest in the sea-gaps. I skirt the sierras. My palms cover continents - I am afoot with my vision."
"There is that indescribable freshness and unconsciousness about an illiterate person that humbles and mocks the power of the noblest expressive genius."
"Lo! body and soul!--this land! Mighty Manhattan, with spires, and The sparkling and hurrying tides, and the ships; The varied and ample land,--the South And the North in the light--Ohio's shores, and flashing Missouri, And ever the far-spreading prairies, covered with grass and corn."
"All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments. It is not the violins and the cornets-it is not the oboe nor the beating drums, nor the score of the baritone singer singing his sweet romanza-nor that of the women's chorus; it is nearer and farther than they."
"I celebrate myself, and sing myself."