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The art of art, the glory of expression, is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity, and the sunlight of letters is simplicity. Nothing is better than simplicity-nothing can make up for excess, or for the lack of definiteness.

Walt Whitman

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Walt Whitman
Age: 72 †
Born: 1819
Born: May 31
Died: 1892
Died: March 26
Editor
Essayist
Journalist
Novelist
Nurse
Poet
Writer
West Hills
New York
Walter Whitman
Letters
Lack
Glory
Expression
Art
Definiteness
Better
Sunlight
Nothing
Excess
Make
Simplicity

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The powerful play goes on and you may contribute a verse.
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O the joy of my spirit - it is uncaged - it darts like lightning!
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I exist as I am, that is enough.
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To drive free, to love free, to court destruction with taunts, to feed the remainder of life with one hour of fullness and freedom - one brief hour of madness and joy.
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Under the specious pretext of effecting 'the happiness of the whole community,' nearly all the wrongs and intrusions of government has been carried through.
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Whoever degrades another degrades me, And whatever is done or said returns at last to me.
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Now, dearest comrade, lift me to your face, We must separate awhileHere! take from my lips this kiss. Whoever you are, I give it especially to you So long!And I hope we shall meet again.
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We arrange our lives-even the best and boldest men and women that exist, just as much as the most limited-with reference to what society conventionally rules and makes right.
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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.
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I sing the body that is electric! I celebrate the Self yet to be unveiled!
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I do not seek good fortune - I am good fortune!
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Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed.
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Strong and content I travel the open road.
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The Past -- the dark unfathomed retrospect! The teeming gulf --the sleepers and the shadows! The past! the infinite greatness of the past! For what is the present after all but a growth out of the past?
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Without enough wilderness America will change. Democracy, with its myriad personalities and increasing sophistication, must be fibred and vitalized by regular contact with outdoor growths - animals, trees, sun warmth and free skies - or it will dwindle and pale.
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I swear I think there is nothing but immortality!
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Keep your face always toward the sunshine everything could be worse but isn't and so we are justified in being grateful - and shadows everything could be better but isn't and so it is easy to be bitter 'unless you decide to look on the bright side will fall behind you.
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THIS dust was once the Man, / Gentle, plain, just and resolute—under whose cautious hand, / Against the foulest crime in history known in any land or age, / Was saved the Union of These States.
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The ecstasy is so short but the forgetting is so long.
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I give you my hand, I give you my love more precious than money, I give you myself before preaching or law Will you give me yourself?
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