“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.”
by Walt Whitman
