All music is is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.
I have said that the soul is not more than the body, And I have said that the body is not more than the soul, And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one's-self is.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote emphasizes the equal importance of the body and soul, suggesting that self-perception and self-worth are paramount.
Walt Whitman's quote reflects on the intrinsic relationship between the body and soul, asserting that neither is superior to the other. It highlights the notion that self-identity and the sense of self are fundamental, suggesting that personal value stems from an individual's own perception rather than external divine measures. This expression promotes the idea that the unity of body and soul forms the essence of one's existence, and that self-recognition is a powerful and defining aspect of life.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a motivational speech about self-worth and acceptance.
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.
In the confusion we stay with each other, happy to be together, speaking without uttering a single word.
A morning-glory at my window satisfies me more than the metaphysics of books.
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.
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral drest in his shroud.
Similar quotes
Melancholy is at the bottom of everything, just as at the end of all rivers is the sea. Can it be otherwise in a world where nothing lasts, where all that we have loved or shall love must die? Is death, then, the secret of life? The gloom of an eternal mourning enwraps, more or less closely, every serious and thoughtful soul, as night enwraps the universe.
Present-moment living, getting in touch with your now, is at the heart of effective living. When you think about it, there really is no other moment you can live. Now is all there is, and the future is just another present moment to live when it arrives.
To accept civilization as it is practically means accepting decay.
I wonder now whether inner coldness and desolation may not be the pre-condition for making the world believe, by a kind of fraudulent showmanship, that one's own wretched heart is still aglow.
I am also greatly indebted to Bergson, William James, and John Dewey. One of my preoccupations has been to rescue their type of thought from the charge of anti-intellectualism, which rightly or wrongly has been associated with it.
It tires me to talk to rich men. You expect a man of millions, the head of a great industry, to be a man worthhearing; but as a rule they don't know anything outside their own business.