Thursday, May 23rd, 2013
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1855 / Brooklyn

Be Not Curious

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I have said that the soul is not more than the body,
And I have said that the body is not more than the soul,
And nothing, not God, is greater to one than one’s self is,
And whoever walks a furlong without sympathy walks to his own funeral dressed in his shroud,
And I or you pocketless of a dime may purchase the pick of the earth,
And to glance with an eye or show a bean in its pod confounds the learning of all times,
And there is no trade or employment but the young man following it may become a hero,
And there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d universe,
And I say to any man or woman, let your soul stand cool and composed before a million universes.
And I say to mankind, be not curious about God,
For I who am curious about each am not curious about God,
(No array of terms can say how much I am at peace about God and about death).

I hear and behold God in every object, yet understand God not in the least,
Nor do I understand who there can be more wonderful than myself.

Why should I wish to see God better than this day?
I see something of God each hour of the twenty-four, and each moment then,
In the faces of men and women I see God, and in my own face in the glass,
I find letters from God dropped in the street, and every one is sign’d by God’s name,
And I leave them where they are, for I know that wheresoe’er I go,
Others will punctually come forever and ever.

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Religion
About the Author

Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself. Unable to find a publisher for the first edition of Leaves of Grass in 1855, Whitman sold a house to pay for its printing. The poet and essayist once wrote, “I respect Assyria, China, Teutonia, and the Hebrews / I adopt each theory, myth, god, and demigod.” Elsewhere he stated, “Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)”

Religion! How it dominates man’s mind, how it humiliates and degrades his soul. God is everything, man is nothing, says religion. But out of that nothing God has created a kingdom so despotic, so tyrannical, so cruel, so terribly exacting that naught but gloom and tears and blood have ruled the world since gods began.
Emma Goldman, 1910
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Lewis H. Lapham is Editor of Lapham's Quarterly. He also serves as editor emeritus and national correspondent for Harper's magazine.
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