All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
Walt WhitmanRead
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 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.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Question established beliefs and embrace your individuality to truly express yourself.
This quote by Walt Whitman encourages individuals to critically evaluate the information and beliefs they have acquired throughout their lives, challenging anything that goes against their personal integrity. It suggests that by dismissing external judgments and embracing one's own truth, one can achieve an authentic and profound expression of self, reflected in both words and physical presence.
Themes
SelfIndividualityExpressionTruthWisdom
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about self-discovery and authenticity.
More from Walt Whitman
All quotes →Did you, too, O friend, suppose democracy was only for elections, for politics, and for a party name? I say democracy is only of use there that it may pass on and come to its flower and fruit in manners, in the highest forms of interaction between people, and their beliefs - in religion, literature, colleges and schools- democracy in all public and private life.
Walt WhitmanRead
In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.
Walt WhitmanRead
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
Walt WhitmanRead
Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face,_x000D_ _x000D_ We must separate awhileHere! take from my lips this kiss._x000D_ _x000D_ Whoever you are, I give it especially to you;_x000D_ _x000D_ So long!And I hope we shall meet again.
Walt WhitmanRead
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Walt WhitmanRead
Similar quotes
At any given moment, public opinion is a chaos of superstition, misinformation, and prejudice.
Gore VidalRead
...and every Wednesday the perfumed young lady slips me a hundred-crown note to leave her alone with the convict. And by Thursday the hundred crowns are already gone in so much beer. And when the visiting hour is over, the young lady comes out with the stink of jail in her elegant clothes; and the prisoner goes back to his cell with the lady's perfume in his jailbird's suit. And I'm left with the smell of beer. Life is nothing but trading smells.
Italo CalvinoRead
If you haven't met Satan recently, you are probably going his way!
C. S. LewisRead
Realise this: one day your soul_x000D_ will depart from your body and you will_x000D_ be drawn behind the curtain that floats between us_x000D_ and the unknown. While you wait for that moment, be happy,_x000D_ because you don't know where you came from and_x000D_ you don't know where you will be going.
Omar KhayyamRead
There is object proof that homosexuality is more interesting than heterosexuality. It's that one knows a considerable number of heterosexuals who would wish to become homosexuals, whereas one knows very few homosexuals who would really like to become heterosexuals.
Michel FoucaultRead
Tempus edax rerum. Time the devourer of everything.
OvidRead