All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
Walt WhitmanRead
The shallow, as intimated, consider liberty a release from all law, from every constraint. The wise see in it, on the contrary, the potent Law of Laws.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True liberty involves embracing certain laws and constraints rather than having complete freedom from them.
Walt Whitman's quote suggests that while some may view liberty as a lack of restrictions, true understanding recognizes that genuine freedom is found in the acceptance of certain laws that govern us. The 'wise' perceive that liberty is not merely an escape from law, but rather a profound commitment to principles that protect and enrich life.
Themes
LibertyLawFreedomWisdomConstraints
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech on civil rights, one might quote Whitman to emphasize that true freedom includes moral and societal laws.
More from Walt Whitman
All quotes βDid 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
It is hard to put aside partisanship. It is hard to give up the easy wisecracking jeer that divides and destroys. It is hard - very hard - to have worked sincerely and wholeheartedly for a cause and to have lost. Most of all, it is hard to put aside personal prejudices. And yet we must put these things aside.
Stephen Vincent BenetRead
Everyone - pantheist, atheist, skeptic, polytheist - has to answer these questions: 'Where did I come from? What is life's meaning? How do I define right from wrong and what happens to me when I die?' Those are the fulcrum points of our existence.
Ravi ZachariasRead
Men's evil manners live in brass; their virtues we write in water.
William ShakespeareRead
Sometimes I think we're alone in the universe, and sometimes I think we're not. In either case the idea is quite staggering.
Arthur C. ClarkeRead
The uniform necessities of human nature produce in a great measure uniformity of life, and for part of the day make one place like another; to dress and to undress, to eat and to sleep, are the same in London as in the country.
Samuel JohnsonRead
The urge for destruction is also a creative urge!
Mikhail BakuninRead