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Who really said it

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul

Written by Walt Whitman 1819–1892
Verified Free to reuse

The passage comes from Walt Whitman's Preface to the 1855 Leaves of Grass. It is an extract from a longer sentence; later collected prose prints small variations, including “in school.”

Last verified 9 Nov 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

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Verified quote & credit

“Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul” — Walt Whitman, Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855), excerpt; wording varies slightly by edition.

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In context

Evoking the world of Walt Whitman — Poet and prose writer. Theme: "Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

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Provenance

The source

Work
Preface to Leaves of Grass
Original publication
1855
Textual note
A longer sentence; later collected prose has minor variants

Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul.

College Board: the 1855 Preface

How we verified this

Public domain

The English passage is from Whitman's 1855 Preface, before 1931; later nineteenth-century wording variants are also public domain.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Context

Why it mattered

The Preface gives readers a long sequence of invitations and instructions: how to read, whom to value and how to trust their own judgment. The quoted 1855 passage ↗ follows the re-examination clause by imagining the reader's own flesh becoming a poem.

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Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Freedom Wisdom

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Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

College Board: the 1855 Prefacesecure-media.collegeboard.org

The teaching guide quotes the 1855 Preface with at school and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.
Whitman's Complete Prose Workswww.gutenberg.org

Transcribes the Preface with in school and an and before dismiss; shows a published variant.
Complete Prose Works: edition recordwww.gutenberg.org

Identifies the collected prose work and author; bibliographic background, not proof of an exact 1855 reading.
Whitman's writing and source collectionen.wikiquote.org

Biographical context for Leaves of Grass and Whitman's prose.

The author

About Walt Whitman

Walt Whitman

1819–1892 · Poet and prose writer

Walt Whitman repeatedly expanded and revised Leaves of Grass, the poetry collection first issued in 1855. His long, open-ended lines made the individual speaker a meeting place for many voices and experiences.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

The primary source (Chicago)

Whitman, Walt. Preface to Leaves of Grass (1855). Clause checked in the College Board's Reading Poetry guide; compared with Complete Prose Works, Project Gutenberg.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Re-examine all you have been told at school or church or in any book, dismiss whatever insults your own soul’?” Last verified 9 Nov 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/re-examine-all-you-have-been-told-at-school-or-church-or-in/

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