What does this quote mean?

“Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie.”

Before assuming rescue must come from outside, the line asks what capacity, choice, or effort is already available within.

Source note: All’s Well That Ends Well, Act 1, Scene 1.

“I dote on myself, there is that lot of me and all so luscious.”

Whitman’s exuberant self-acceptance is deliberately bodily and unapologetic, presenting delight in one’s own existence as something broader than vanity or external approval.

Source note: Song of Myself, in the passage celebrating the body and the speaker’s delight in his own existence.

“The wise man is self-sufficient. Nevertheless, he desires friends.”

Self-sufficiency does not require isolation; inner stability can coexist with a genuine desire for friendship and shared life.

Source note: Letter 9 contrasts Stoic self-sufficiency with the continuing value of friendship.

“If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside.”

Dignity is separated from possessions and appearance, locating self-worth in conduct and inner standards when external status has been stripped away.

Source note: A Little Princess; Sara uses an imagined inner identity to preserve dignity during poverty and mistreatment.

“I am larger, better than I thought, I did not know I held so much goodness.”

Whitman describes self-discovery as expansion rather than invention: experience reveals capacities and goodness that were already present but insufficiently recognized.

Source note: Song of the Open Road, section 5, after the speaker describes loosening imagined limits.

“I know I am solid and sound.”

Whitman’s speaker declares an underlying soundness that is not presented as a verdict from other people, making self-assurance part of the poem’s larger democratic self.

Source note: Song of Myself, 1882 text; this statement begins a sequence of increasingly expansive declarations about the speaker’s place in the universe.