“when man determined to destroy
himself he picked the was
of shall and finding only why
smashed it into because”

— E.E. Cummings

Source: 100 Selected Poems

Last update June 3, 2021. History

Help us to complete the source, original and additional information

Do you have more details about the quote "when man determined to destroy himself he picked the was of shall and finding only why smashed it into because" by E.E. Cummings?

E.E. Cummings photo

E.E. Cummings 208

American poet 1894–1962

Related quotes

“This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself.”

William Morris book A Dream of John Ball

Source: A Dream of John Ball (1886), Ch. 4: The Voice of John Ball
Context: Forsooth, he that waketh in hell and feeleth his heart fail him, shall have memory of the merry days of earth, and how that when his heart failed him there, he cried on his fellow, were it his wife or his son or his brother or his gossip or his brother sworn in arms, and how that his fellow heard him and came and they mourned together under the sun, till again they laughed together and were but half sorry between them. This shall he think on in hell, and cry on his fellow to help him, and shall find that therein is no help because there is no fellowship, but every man for himself.

“It is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

Stanley Milgram (1933–1984) Social psychologist

Source: Obedience to Authority : An Experimental View (1974), p. 205
Context: The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson: often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.

“Women speak because they wish to speak, whereas a man speaks only when driven to speech by something outside himself—like, for instance, he can't find any clean socks.”

Jean Kerr (1922–2003) Irish-American author and playwright

"How to Talk to a Man"
The Snake Has All the Lines (1960)

“We would not think of allowing a man to determine a woman’s life merely because a fetus he helped create was in her womb; then why would we allow a woman to determine a man’s life merely because a fetus he helped create is in her womb?”

Warren Farrell (1943) author, spokesperson, expert witness, political candidate

Source: Father and Child Reunion (2001), p. 137.

“Man must not only make himself: the weightiest thing he has to do is to determine what he is going to be. He is causa sui to the second power.”

José Ortega Y Gasset (1883–1955) Spanish liberal philosopher and essayist

As quoted in Existentialism from Dostoevsky to Sartre, p. 155
History as a System (1962)

“Man is not fully conditioned and determined but rather determines himself whether he gives in to conditions or stands up to them.”

Viktor E. Frankl (1905–1997) Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist, and Holocaust survivor

“Let reason count the stars, weigh the mountains, fathom the depths — the employment becomes her, and the success is glorious. But when the question is, "How shall man be just with God?" reason must be silent, revelation must speak; and he who will not hear it assimilates himself to the first deist, Cain; he may not kill a brother, he certainly destroys himself.”

Henry Melvill (1798–1871) British academic

Source: Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers (1895), P. 488.

“Love is not about conquest. The truth is a man can only find true love when he surrenders to it. When he opens his heart to the partner of his soul and says: "Here it is! The very essence of me! It is yours to nurture or destroy.”

David Gemmell (1948–2006) British author of heroic fantasy

Source: Lord of the Silver Bow

“And he could not tell why the struggle was worth while, why he had determined to use the utmost himself and his heritage from the personalities he has passed….”

F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940) American novelist and screenwriter

Quoted, This Side of Paradise (1920)

“The only reason why God created man is because he was disappointed with the monkey.”

Mark Twain (1835–1910) American author and humorist

Autobiographical Dictation (1906)

Related topics