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
To Be Nobody-But-Yourself
Topic: Self-Cultivation & Health
A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words. This may sound easy. It isn’t. A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.
Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself. 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.
Edward Estlin Cummings, known as E. E. Cummings, was born on October 14, 1894, in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Raised in a family that valued education, faith, and creative expression, E. E. Cummings was encouraged by his mother, Rebecca Haswell Clarke Cummings, to explore poetry and art from an early age. His father, Edward Cummings, was a Unitarian minister and former Harvard professor. E. E. Cummings attended Harvard University, earning a bachelor's degree in 1915 and a master's degree in 1916. During these years, he became interested in modern art and experimental poetry, developing an approach to language that challenged conventional forms while remaining attentive to love, nature, and individual experience.
In 1917, E. E. Cummings volunteered as an ambulance driver in France during World War I. His outspoken views and correspondence led French authorities to detain him and a fellow American for several months, an experience he later described in The Enormous Room (1922). His first poetry collection, Tulips and Chimneys (1923), introduced readers to his unconventional use of punctuation, capitalization, spacing, and syntax. Throughout his career, E. E. Cummings resisted artistic conformity, seeking to express the vitality of individual experience. His writing combined tenderness and humor with criticism of social conventions and institutions that diminished personal freedom. Alongside poetry, he continued painting and produced plays and prose, sustaining a lifelong commitment to artistic independence.
In his later years, E. E. Cummings received growing recognition, including two Guggenheim Fellowships, Harvard's Charles Eliot Norton Professorship in 1952–1953, and the Bollingen Prize for Poetry in 1958. In his essay “A Poet's Advice to Students,” published in 1955, he emphasized the importance of genuine feeling and the lifelong struggle to remain oneself despite society's pressure to conform. This understanding of authenticity was central to both his art and his outlook on life. E. E. Cummings spent much of his later life between Greenwich Village in New York City and Joy Farm in New Hampshire, where he died on September 3, 1962, at age 67. His poetry remains an enduring expression of individuality, love, and the freedom to experience life in one's own way.
"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are." E.E. Cummings
E.E. Cummings (October 14, 1894–September 3, 1962) — an artist who never cowered from being his unconventional self because, in the words of his most incisive and competent biographer, he “despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it.”
A fortnight after the poet’s fifty-ninth birthday, a small Michigan newspaper published a short, enormous piece by Cummings under the title “A Poet’s Advice to Students,” radiating expansive wisdom on art, life, and the courage of being yourself.
Cummings, E. E. “A Poet’s Advice to Students.” E. E. Cummings: A Miscellany Revised, edited by George J. Firmage, October House, 1965.
E.E. Cummings
Theme: Being in Self
About This E.E. Cummings Quotation [Commentary]
E.E. Cummings begins with a simple understanding of poetry: “A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.” Yet feeling is not as easy as it seems. People may “think or believe or know they feel,” but these activities are not the same as feeling itself. For E.E. Cummings, “poetry is feeling,” and its expression requires something more immediate than intellectual understanding. This distinction does not dismiss the value of thought or knowledge. Rather, it recognizes that genuine feeling comes from direct personal experience, which cannot be replaced by what we have learned to think or believe.
E.E. Cummings connects feeling with individuality. While thinking, believing, and knowing can be learned from others, “not a single human being can be taught to feel.” Our thoughts and beliefs are often shaped by the people and cultures around us, but our feelings arise from our own experience. This is why E.E. Cummings writes that “the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.” Being in Self begins with recognizing and remaining present to what we genuinely feel, rather than allowing inherited expectations or the opinions of others to determine who we are. This awareness does not require withdrawing from others, but remaining faithful to our own experience.
E.E. Cummings recognizes how difficult it is to remain “nobody-but-yourself” in a world continually pressuring us to become “everybody else.” The challenge is not simply to discover our individuality but to live according to it amid the expectations of others. This requires courage, especially when being true to ourselves means resisting conformity. E.E. Cummings calls this “the hardest battle which any human being can fight” and ends with the words “never stop fighting.” Authenticity is not something we achieve once and permanently possess, but a continuing commitment to honor what is genuine within us while participating fully in the world around us.
Additional E.E. Cummings Quotations and Commentary
E.E. Cummings (October 14, 1894–September 3, 1962)—an artist who never cowered from being his unconventional self because, in the words of his most incisive and competent biographer, he “despised fear, and his life was lived in defiance of all who ruled by it.” [Maria Popova
A fortnight after the poet’s fifty-ninth birthday, a small Michigan newspaper published a short, enormous piece by Cummings under the title “A Poet’s Advice to Students,” radiating expansive wisdom on art, life, and the courage of being yourself.
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