“nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and whenever we do it, we are not poets.”

— E. E. Cummings, A Poet's Advice to Students (1958), in E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany, p. 13

About E. E. Cummings

American poet and painter known for unconventional typography and love poems such as 'i carry your heart with me'.

“i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)”

“Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel”

“Writing, I feel, is an art; and artists, I feel, are human beings.”

“The unexamined life is not worth living.”

“It is unlikely that the good of a snail should reside in its shell: so is it likely that the good of a man should?”

“In theory there is nothing to hinder our following what we are taught; but in life there are many things to draw us aside.”

“If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces.”

“That which makes the man no worse than he was makes his life no worse: it has no power to harm, without or within.”

“Always take the short cut; and that is the rational one. Therefore say and do everything according to soundest reason.”