“To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.”

— 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.”

“Whate'er I may have been, or am, doth rest between Heaven and myself; I shall not choose a mortal to be my mediator.”

“Self-pity in its early stages is as snug as a feather mattress. Only when it hardens does it become uncomfortable.”

“Reciprocity is a matter of keeping the gift in motion through self-perpetuating cycles of giving and receiving.”

“I've found that there is always some beauty left — in nature, sunshine, freedom, in yourself; these can all help you.”

“Democracy is, by the nature of it, a self-canceling business; and it gives in the long run a net result of zero.”

“I could give you no advice but this: to go into yourself and to explore the depths where your life wells forth.”