"I Love You for What You Are"

Carl Sandburg
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"I love you for what you are, but I love you yet more for what you are going to be.

"I love you not so much for your realities as for your ideals. I pray for your desires that they may be great, rather than for your satisfactions, which may be so hazardously little.

"A satisfied flower is one whose petals are about to fall. The most beautiful rose is one hardly more than a bud wherein the pangs and ecstasies of desire are working for a larger and finer growth.

"Not always shall you be what you are now.

"You are going forward toward something great. I am on the way with you and therefore I love you."