"It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."
— e.e. cummings

"To be nobody but
yourself in a world
which is doing its best day and night to make you like
everybody else means to fight the hardest battle
which any human being can fight and never stop fighting."
— e.e. cummings

"The most wasted of all days is one without laughter."
— e.e. cummings

"We do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us something is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. Once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."
— e.e. cummings

"I'd rather learn from one bird how to sing
than teach ten thousand stars how not to dance"
— e.e. cummings

"the earth laughs in flowers."
— e.e. cummings

"nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility:whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody,not even the rain, has such small hands

-excerpt of #35 from "100 Selected Poems"
— e.e. cummings

"For whatever we lose (like a you or a me),
It's always our self we find in the sea."
— e.e. cummings

"Lovers alone wear sunlight."
— e.e. cummings

"I thank you G-d for most this amazing
day: for leaping greenly spirits of trees
And a blue true dream of sky; and for everything
Which is natural which is infinite which is yes."
— e.e. cummings

"since the thing perhaps is
to eat flowers and not to be afraid"
— e.e. cummings (E.E. Cummings: Complete Poems 1904-1962)

"I like my body when it is with your body. It is so quite new a thing. Muscles better and nerves more."
— e.e. cummings

"Unless you love someone, nothing else makes sense."
— e.e. cummings

"i carry your heart with me(i carry it in my heart)"
— e.e. cummings

"The snow doesn't give a soft white damn who it touches."
— e.e. cummings

"may my heart always be open to little
birds who are the secrets of living
whatever they sing is better than to know
and if men should not hear them men are old

may my mind stroll about hungry
and fearless and thirsty and supple
and even if it's sunday may i be wrong
for whenever men are right they are not young

and may myself do nothing usefully
and love yourself so more than truly
there's never been quite such a fool who could fail
pulling all the sky over him with one smile"
— e.e. cummings (100 Selected Poems)

"i thank god for this most amazing day, for the leaping greenly spirits of trees & for the blue dreams of sky & for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes."
— e.e. cummings

"a wind has blown the rain away & the sky away & all the leaves away, & the trees stand. i think i, too, have known autumn too long."
— e.e. cummings

"Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star..."
— e.e. cummings

"in time of daffodils(who know
the goal of living is to grow)
forgetting why,remember how

in time of lilacs who proclaim
the aim of waking is to dream,
remember so(forgetting seem)

in time of roses(who amaze
our now and here with paradise)
forgetting if,remember yes

in time of all sweet things beyond
whatever mind may comprehend,
remember seek(forgetting find)

and in a mystery to be
(when time from time shall set us free)
forgetting me,remember me"
— e.e. cummings

"somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully, mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens; only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands"
— e.e. cummings (Selected Poems)

"Love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds"
— e.e. cummings