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“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

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