E. E. Cummings

1894–1962 · American modernist poet

Edward Estlin Cummings (1894–1962) was an American poet, painter and essayist celebrated for his playful lowercase typography and his fierce insistence on individual feeling over conformity. In ‘A Poet’s Advice to Students’ (1955) he wrote the now-famous passage about being ‘nobody-but-yourself’ in a world bent on making you everybody else — the documented ancestor of the aphorism now widely pinned on Emerson.

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1 quote we’ve traced

“To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment”

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