Quotessence
Home / Quotes / Quote by Walt Whitman

Quote by Walt Whitman

“The thin red jellies within you or within me, the bones and the marrow in the bones, The exquisite realization of health; O I say these are not the parts and poems of the body only, but of the soul, O I say now these are the soul!”

Quote by Walt Whitman

Work

Leaves of Grass and Other Writings

Browse quotes and source details for this work. more

Author

Walt Whitman
Walt Whitman

American poet, considered one of the pioneers of American poetry. His work, 'Leaves of Grass,' has had a profound impact on American poetry. more

You May Also Like

“One starts from the experiential assumption that the mind-body modality changes through the training of the mind and body by means of cultivation (shugyo) or training (1ceiko). Only after assuming this experiential ground does one ask what the mind-body relation is. That is, the mind-body issue is not simply a theoretical speculation but it is originally a practical, lived experience (taiken), involving the mustering of one's whole mind and body. The theoretical is only a reflection on this lived experience.”

“Matter, as something obvious and tangible, is all around us, but as we already know—what we perceive is only a presentation of the world to our senses through which we make the picture of the world. Our senses allow us to touch, smell, and feel love, pleasure, and pain. Everything looks material in a literal sense, yet what lives is only an idea translated through the senses. All we feel, touch, smell, and see exists because we not only touch it, smell it, and see it but are aware of it and have an idea about it. Beyond all we see or imagine, there is an overpowering mind. Without this, mind-matter is not only dead but is also not possible.”

“If we could become accustomed to this kind of reasoning, we could recognize that what determines our usual way of thinking, not necessarily perception, which we often condition by thoughts, is the paradigm accepted as “absolute truth.” However, it may not be the truth. It is impossible to imagine anything as absolutely dead except something nonexistent, which is, on the other hand, not dead but only nonexistent.”

“There is no actual death in the Universe, only a transition from one state to another. The fact that matter, for the most part, does not have an awareness of itself does not change this fact. Matter itself, in all its forms, is alive everywhere. This life is possible only through something which channels it and feeds it. That something is the Absolute Mind or what, often misused and misinterpreted, the word God means in a deeper and broader sense.”

“We must use certain words; it is the main way to express our thoughts. Even with simple words, like mind and God, the matter becomes more complicated when we use them as terms with specific meanings outside their usual meaning. In this sense, God, as interpreted in most religious books, except in Buddhism, is not only personalized but becomes personal—he “listens” to and “cares” about us in a literal sense. On the other hand, the Absolute Mind is a different idea of the Being. However, what exists exists, regardless of our interpretation, and is not affected by our interpretations, except as a development of ourselves, which is, at the same time, the life of that of which we are part—of the Absolute Mind.”

“Mark is the one thing in this world that I love enough to write a million words about... he is the one I am obsessive about recording. I want you to love him as much as I do. I want you to see him how I see him. Yes, he has flaws and, yes, I put my blinders on when looking at those flaws... but I feel compelled to immortalize our story—his story.”