“In the faces of men and women I see God.”
Song of Myself, 48
Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919)
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Walt Whitman 181
American poet, essayist and journalist 1819–1892Related quotes
“Faith sees God's face in every human face.”
Source: Poustinia (1975), Ch. 12
“How I long to see
among dawn flowers,
the face of God.”
Source: Haiku
Interview with Frederick Van Ryn, This Week Magazine (January 4, 1953), p. 11. Sandburg previously used these words at a rally at Madison Square Garden, New York City (October 28, 1952), praising Adlai E. Stevenson during the latter's 1952 presidential campaign. Reported in The Papers of Adlai E. Stevenson (1955), vol. 4, p. 175.
“I speak in Latin to God, Italian to Women, French to Men, and German to my Horse.”
Charles V may have said something in this general format, but not with this specific wording. Variants have been quoted for centuries, and the earliest known citation, itself a secondary source dating from 40 years after his death, gives two versions that both differ from the modern one. Girolamo Fabrizi d'Acquapendente's 1601 De Locutione gives:
Unde solebat, ut audio, Carolus V Imperator dicere, Germanorum linguam esse militarem: Hispanorum amatoriam: Italorum oratoriam: Gallorum nobilem ("When Emperor Charles V used to say, as I hear, that the language of the Germans was military; that of the Spaniards pertained to love; that of the Italians to prayer; that of the French was noble").
Alius vero, qui Germanus erat, retulit, eundem Carolum Quintum dicere aliquando solitum esse; Si loqui cum Deo oporteret, se Hispanice locuturum, quod lingua Hispanorum gravitatem maiestatemque prae se ferat; si cum amicis, Italice, quod Italorum dialectus familiaris sit; si cui blandiendum esset, Gallice, quod illorum lingua nihil blandius; si cui minandum aut asperius loquendum, Germanice, quod tota eorum lingua minax, aspera sit ac vehemens (Indeed another, who was German, related that the same Charles V sometimes used to say: if it was necessary to talk with God, that he would talk in Spanish, which language suggests itself for the graveness and majesty of the Spaniards; if with friends, in Italian, for the dialect of the Italians was one of familiarity; if to caress someone, in French, for no language is tenderer than theirs; if to threaten someone or to speak harshly to them, in German, for their entire language is threatening, rough and vehement").
2000s, 2003, Mission Accomplished (May 2003)
Source: Why Men Are the Way They Are (1988), p. xxvi.
