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

The line contrasts humble, attentive learning from a single living creature (“one bird”) with the arrogant impulse to correct or regulate vast, radiant forces (“ten thousand stars”). It celebrates receptivity, wonder, and apprenticeship to nature over didacticism and control. In spirit it aligns with Cummings’s recurring defense of individuality and spontaneity against social conformity: better to cultivate one authentic voice (to “sing”) than to police the exuberant motion of the universe (to tell stars “how not to dance”). The hyperbole underscores the absurdity of trying to discipline what is inherently free, suggesting that true wisdom lies in listening, not lecturing.