contain multitudes

From the American poet Walt Whitman's "Song of Myself".

contain multitudes (third-person singular simple present contains multitudes, present participle containing multitudes, simple past and past participle contained multitudes)

1. (idiomatic) To have a complex and apparently paradoxical nature, to be inconsistent, especially in a way that is ultimately noble or admirable.
   • 1855, Walt Whitman, Song of Myself:

     Do I contradict myself?
     Very well then I contradict myself,
     (I am large, I contain multitudes.)

   • 1970, Bernard Benstock, Sean O'Casey:

     "Mirror in My House is both a portrait of the artist (O'Casey himself) and a portrait of an artist (a fictional John-Johnny-Sean Casside who contains multitudes), yet it is the unrelenting single vision of a particular personality with a fixed point of view."

   • 1996, Richard Taruskin, Stravinsky and the Russian Traditions:

     "Diaghilev would show Europe that Russia was large and contained multitudes: multitudes of social classes and occupations, and multitudes of indigenous musical styles, not all of them "Asiatic" or peasant."

   • 2020 January 28, Lindsey Sullivan, Watch Les Miz Tour Javert Preston Truman Boyd's Luminous Performance of 'Stars':

     "In taking on this new role, Boyd had learned that Les Miz's "bad guy" contains multitudes--not unlike the stars he sings about."