Whitman: To a pupil...

IS reform needed? Is it through you?  
The greater the reform needed, the greater the personality you need to accomplish it.  
  
You! do you not see how it would serve to have eyes, blood, complexion, clean and sweet?  
Do you not see how it would serve to have such a Body and Soul, that when you enter the crowd, an atmosphere of desire and command enters with you, and every one is impress’d with your personality?  
  
O the magnet! the flesh over and over!
Go, dear friend! if need be, give up all else, and commence to-day to inure yourself to pluck, reality, self-esteem, definiteness, elevatedness;  

Rest not, till you rivet and publish yourself of your own personality.

See also:

• Whitman: When I heard the Learn’d Astronomer...
• Whitman: How Solemn as One by One...
• Whitman: Resist much, obey little...
• Whitman: To Him that was Crucified...