How we cite our quotes: (Line)
Quote #1
You air that serves me with breath to speak!
You objects that call from diffusion my meanings, and give them shape!
You light that wraps me and all things in delicate equable showers!
You paths worn in the irregular hollows by the roadsides!
I think you are latent with unseen existences—you are so dear to me. (24-28)
From the poem's beginning, we're told that this is no ordinary voyage. The open road is a path filled with "unseen existences" that matter deeply to the speaker. It seems that we're not just out for your typical stroll, but instead taking a more spiritual voyage. Coolio's got nothing on this guy.
Quote #2
Now I reëxamine philosophies and religions,
They may prove well in lecture-rooms, yet not prove at all under the spacious clouds, and along the landscape and flowing currents. (84-85)
The speaker's trip on the open road causes him to rethink the conventional theories of life and existence. His point here is that true wisdom about the nature of our reality can't come from a textbook. It has to come from real, lived experience—the kind you might get, oh we don't know, maybe on an open road somewhere.
Quote #3
Allons! from all formules!
From your formules, O bat-eyed and materialistic priests! (130-131)
"Bat-eyed" priests? Our speaker's at his most direct here. He's calling out priests as being blinded (as bats) by their conventional ways of seeing reality ("formules" = formulas). The implication is that the open road can show us a better way to view life.