I'd rather have two good friends, than 500,000 admirers.
Time cannot children,poets,lovers tell- measure imagine,mystery,a kiss -not though mankind would rather know than feel
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote emphasizes that time cannot quantify emotions and experiences, particularly those related to love and imagination.
E. E. Cummings highlights the idea that the most profound moments in life, such as love, creativity, and intimate experiences like a kiss, cannot be measured by time or logic. Instead, these moments are better understood through feelings and personal experiences, which often transcend rational understanding. Cummings suggests that while humanity may seek to define and understand these intimate experiences, the true essence lies in the ability to feel rather than merely know.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be shared during a wedding ceremony to emphasize the significance of love and connection beyond time.
More from E. E. Cummings
All quotes βI'd rather learn from one bird how to sing than to teach ten thousand stars how not to dance.
It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are.
When god decided to invent everything he took one reath bigger than a circustent and everything began
The Artist is no other than he who unlearns what he has learned, in order to know himself.
Nobody else can be alive for you; nor can you be alive for anybody else.
Similar quotes
Yes! He knew how she would love. He had not loved her without gaining that instinctive knowledge of what capabilities were in her. Her soul would walk in glorious sunlight if any man was worthy, by his power of loving, to win back her love.
Well, for instance, when I left her today, she put her arms around me and felt my shoulder blades, to see if my wings were strong, she said.
How can I be kind? How can I find bird-relief in the nest-building of day-to-day? Necessity supplies no velvet wing with which to escape. I am indeed and mortally pierced with the seeds of love.
I've found what I was looking for, Child: what people call love between a man and a woman is a season. And if, at its flowering, this season is a feast of greenery, at its waning, it's only a heap of rotting leaves.
Give me hunger, pain and want, Shut me out with shame and failure From your doors of gold and fame, Give me your shabbiest, weariest hunger! But leave me a little love.
When you are very old, and sit in the candle - light at evening spinning by the fire, you will say, as you murmur my verses, a wonder in your eyes, 'Ronsard sang of me in the days when I was fair.