“I would rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach 10,000 stars how not to dance.”
Collected Poems (1938) New Poems 22
Variant: I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
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E.E. Cummings208
American poet 1894–1962Related quotes
Terry Tempest Williams book Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Source: Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
Harry Reid (1939) American politician
Source: "Reid Says He's A Fighter Who'd Rather Dance", All Things Considered, NPR (18 May 2010) https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126905578
“How can a bird that is born for joy
Sit in a cage and sing?”
William Blake (1757–1827) English Romantic poet and artist
Friedrich Nietzsche book Twilight of the Idols
Variant: Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education; dancing with the feet, with ideas, with words, and, need I add that one must also be able to dance with the pen?
Source: Twilight of the Idols
“Ah well, perhaps one has to be very old before one learns how to be amused rather than shocked.”
Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973) American writer
China, Past and Present (1972) Ch. 6
Jacques Barzun (1907–2012) Historian
"Reasons to De-Test the Schools," New York Times (1988-10-11), later published in Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991)
“He is doing the show 'Dancing with the Stars' and that's how he's boxing.”
Ricky Hatton (1978) English former professional boxer
Hatton insulting Floyd Mayweather Jr before their clash on the 8th Dec. http://news2.thdo.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/boxing/7000159.stm <br class="br">Ricky on other boxers (Sourced)
Niccolo Machiavelli book The Prince
Source: The Prince (1513), Ch. 15
Context: Many have imagined republics and principalities which have never been seen or known to exist in reality; for how we live is so far removed from how we ought to live, that he who abandons what is done for what ought to be done, will rather bring about his own ruin than his preservation.