How shall the soul of a man be larger than the life he has lived?

The spiritual kinship between Lincoln and Whitman was founded upon their Americanism, their essential Westernism. Whitman had grown up without much formal education; Lincoln had scarcely any education. One had become the notable poet of the day; one the orator of the Gettsyburg Address. It was inevitable that Whitman as a poet should turn with a feeling of kinship to Lincoln, and even without any association or contact feel that Lincoln was his.

the much-sought prize of eternal youth Is just arrested growth.

The earth keeps some vibration going There in your heart, and that is you. And if the people find you can fiddle, why fiddle you must, for all your life.

The Typical American? He is sent to school Little or much, where he imbibes the rule Of safety first and comfort; in his youth He joins the church and ends the quest of truth.

There is the silence of age, too full of wisdom for the tongue to utter it in words intelligible to those who have not lived the great range of life.

And I never started to plow in my life That some one did not stop in the road And take me away to a dance or picnic. I ended up with forty acres; I ended up with a broken fiddle— And a broken laugh, and a thousand memories, And not a single regret.