"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.)"
"O the joy of my spirit--it is uncaged--it darts like lightning!It is not enough to have this globe or a certain time,I will have thousands of globes and all time."
"Re-examine all you have been told. Dismiss what insults your soul."
"Do I contradict myself? Very well, then, I contradict myself; I am large -- I contain multitudes."
"Songs of myselfI am the poet of the Body and I am the poet of the Soul, The pleasures of heaven are with me and the pains of hell are with me, The first I graft and increase upon myself, the latter I translate into new tongue. I am the poet of the woman the same as the man, And I say it is as great to be a woman as to be a man,.."
"Argue not concerning God,…re-examine all that you have been told at church or school or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your soul…"