This is what you shall do; Love the earth and sun and the animals,
despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for the
stupid and crazy, devote your income and labor to others, hate tyrants,
argue not concerning God, have patience and indulgence toward the
people, take off your hat to nothing known or unknown or to any man or
number of men, go freely with powerful uneducated persons and with the
young and with the mothers of families, read these leaves in the open
air every season of every year of your life, 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.
—Walt Whitman, from the preface of Leaves of Grass
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| photo by Michael Kolster |
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