“I do not ask the wounded person how he feels, I myself become the wounded person.”

“Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune.”

“Sometimes with one I love, I fill myself with rage, for fear I effuse unreturn'd love; But now I think there is no unreturn'd love—the pay is certain, one way or another; (I loved a certain person ardently, and my love was not return'd; Yet out of that, I have written these songs.) ”

“Do I contradict myself?Very well then I contradict myself,(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

“Behold I do not give lectures or a little charity, when I give I give myself.”

“Now I see the secret of making the best person: it is to grow in the open air and to eat and sleep with the earth.”

“Are you the new person drawn toward me?To begin with, take warning - I am surely far different from what you suppose; Do you suppose you will find in me your ideal?Do you think it so easy to have me become your lover? Do you think the friendship of me would be unalloy'd satisfaction? Do you think I am trusty and faithful?Do you see no further than this façade—this smooth and tolerant manner of me? Do you suppose yourself advancing on real ground toward a real heroic man? Have you no thought, O dreamer, that it may be all maya, illusion?”