I loafe and invite my soul, / I lean and loafe at my ease observing a spear of summer grass.
The lines open the poem’s second movement, in which the speaker idles in the grass rather than working. “Loafe” is Whitman’s own spelling, which later editions kept.
Do I contradict myself? / Very well then I contradict myself, / (I am large, I contain multitudes.)
I celebrate myself, and sing myself, / And what I assume you shall assume, / For every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.
I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear,
A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.
A house divided against itself cannot stand.
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp, / The Man’s the gowd for a’ that.