“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 (1958)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "nothing is quite as easy as using words like somebody else. We all of us do exactly this nearly all of the time — and w…" by E.E. Cummings?
E.E. Cummings photo
E.E. Cummings 208
American poet 1894–1962

Related quotes

Abraham Lincoln photo

“We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing.”

Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865) 16th President of the United States

Address in Baltimore, Maryland http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=88871 (18 April 1864)
1860s
Context: The world has never had a good definition of the word liberty, and the American people, just now, are much in want of one. We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name — liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names — liberty and tyranny.

Louisa May Alcott photo

“We can't any of us do all we would like, but we can do our best for every case that comes to us, and that helps amazingly.”

Louisa May Alcott book An Old-Fashioned Girl

Source: An Old-Fashioned Girl

Rudyard Kipling photo

“All the people like us are we, and everyone else is they.”

Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) English short-story writer, poet, and novelist

Other works
Variant: Father, Mother, and Me,
Sister and Auntie say
All the people like us are We,
And every one else is They.

“Whereas certain people start with a recollection or an experience and paint that experience, to some of us the act of doing is the experience; so that we are not quite clear why we are engaged on a particular work. And because we are more interested in plastic matters than we are in matters of words, once can begin a painting and carry it through and stop it and do nothing about the title at all. All pictures are full of association.”

William Baziotes (1912–1963) American painter

Source: 1950s, Artists' Session at Studio 35, (1950), p. 217

Francois Mauriac photo

“We are, all of us, molded and remolded by those who have loved us, and though that love may pass, we remain none the less their work--a work that very likely they do not recognize, and which is never exactly what they intended.”

Francois Mauriac (1885–1970) French author
Marlon Brando photo

“Acting is the least mysterious of all crafts. Whenever we want something from somebody or when we want to hide something or pretend, we're acting. Most people do it all day long.”

Marlon Brando (1924–2004) American screen and stage actor

New York Times (July 2, 2004)

Adam Gopnik photo

“Accomplishment, the feeling of absorption in the flow, of mastery for its own sake, of knowing how to do this thing, is what keeps all of us doing what we do, if we like what we do at all.”

Adam Gopnik (1956) American journalist

How to Raise a Prodigy, The New Yorker (2018)

Pope Francis photo

“The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us.”

Pope Francis (1936) 266th Pope of the Catholic Church

As quoted in "Pope at Mass: Culture of encounter is the foundation of peace" at Vatican Radio (22 May 2013) http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2013/05/22/pope_at_mass:_culture_of_encounter_is_the_foundation_of_peace/en1-694445
2010s, 2013
Context: The Lord created us in His image and likeness, and we are the image of the Lord, and He does good and all of us have this commandment at heart: do good and do not do evil. All of us. "But, Father, this is not Catholic! He cannot do good." Yes, he can. He must. Not can: must! Because he has this commandment within him. Instead, this "closing off" that imagines that those outside, everyone, cannot do good is a wall that leads to war and also to what some people throughout history have conceived of: killing in the name of God. That we can kill in the name of God. And that, simply, is blasphemy. To say that you can kill in the name of God is blasphemy.

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien photo

“So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

John Ronald Reuel Tolkien (1892–1973) British philologist and author, creator of classic fantasy works

Context: Frodo: I wish the Ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times, but that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.

Related topics