“Be not dishearten’d —Affection shall solve the problems of Freedom yet; Those who love each other shall become invincible.”—Walt Whitman (via susieqxx)
“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…”—Uncle Walt, Preface to Leaves of Grass, 1855. Happy birthday, Poetic Spirit of America! (via lessonsofdarkness)
“At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.” — Flannery O’Connor”—
