“Behold, I do not give lectures or a little charity, / When I give I give myself.”
Permalink: Walt Whitman
About this quote
Whitman's long poem is about the self as the ground of everything, and the couplet is one of its declarations of scale. Read as a love quote it makes a strong claim about what affection is supposed to transfer: not a token, but the whole person, which is more than most cards promise.
Source: Song of Myself