Robert Frost Quotes

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.

We love the things we love for what they are.

These woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.

No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

Some say the world will end in fire, Some say in ice. From what I've tasted of desire, I hold with those who favor fire. But if it had to perish twice I think I know enough of hate To say that for destruction ice Is also great And would suffice.

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee And I'll forgive Thy great big one on me.

If we couldn't laugh we would all go insane.

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth; Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same, And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back. I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

Freedom lies in being bold.

The best way out is always through.

Poetry is what gets lost in translation.

Half the world is composed of people who have something to say and can't, and the other half who have nothing to say and keep on saying it.

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I - I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

I am not a teacher, but an awakener.

Nature's first green is gold, Her hardest hue to hold. Her early leaf's a flower; But only so an hour. Then leaf subsides to leaf. So Eden sank to grief, So dawn goes down to day. Nothing gold can stay.

Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.

The rain to the wind said, You push and I'll pelt.' They so smote the garden bed That the flowers actually knelt, And lay lodged--though not dead. I know how the flowers felt.

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.

They cannot scare me with their empty spaces Between stars—on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home To scare myself with my own desert places.

Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.

I'm not confused. I'm just well mixed.

So dawn goes down today... Nothing gold can stay. -- Robert Frost

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.

There are two kinds of teachers: the kind that fill you with so much quail shot that you can't move, and the kind that just gives you a little prod behind and you jump to the skies.

I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.

The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.

The heart can think of no devotion Greater than being shore to the ocean- Holding the curve of one position, Counting an endless repetition.

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?

We ran as if to meet the moon.

There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won't, and that's a wife who can't cook and will.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.

How many things would you attempt If you knew you could not fail

We dance round in a ring and suppose, But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.

The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.

Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.

A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.

The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.

Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That's voting.

The way a crow Shook down on me The dust of snow From a hemlock tree Has given my heart A change of mood And saved some part Of a day I had rued.

The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.

And were an epitaph to be my story I'd have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.

Before I built a wall I'd ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.

The middle of the road is where the white line is—and that’s the worst place to drive.

Unless you are educated in metaphor, you are not safe to be let loose in the world.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile And then come back to it and begin over. May no fate wilfully misunderstand me And half grant what I wish and snatch me away Not to return. Earth's the right place for love: I don't know where it's likely to go better.

I believe in teaching, but I don’t believe in going to school.

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

A poem begins with a lump in the throat; a homesickness or a love sickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression; an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.

By faithfully working eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.

Oh, come forth into the storm and rout And be my love in the rain.

I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn

A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.

Families break up when they get hints you don't intend and miss hints that you do.

You're always believing ahead of your evidence. What was the evidence I could write a poem? I just believed it. The most creative thing in us is to believe in a thing.

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body— the wishbone.

Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?

Come over the hills and far with me And be my love in the rain.

A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.

Anything more than the truth would be too much.

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.

Good fences make good neighbors.

You've got to love what's lovable, and hate what's hateable. It takes brains to see the difference.

Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening Whose woods these are I think I know. His house is in the village, though; He will not see me stopping here To watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer To stop without a farmhouse near Between the woods and frozen lake The darkest evening of the year. He gives his harness bells a shake To ask if there is some mistake. The only other sound's the sweep Of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark, and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Every poem is a momentary stay against the confusion of the world.

What we live by we die by.

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.

Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.

We stand now where two roads diverge. But unlike the roads in Robert Frost's familiar poem, they are not equally fair. The road we have long been traveling is deceptively easy, a smooth superhighway on which we progress with great speed, but at its end lies disaster. The other fork of the road — the one less traveled by — offers our last, our only chance to reach a destination that assures the preservation of the earth.

Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.

I turned to speak to God About the world's despair But to make bad matters worse I found God wasn't there.

The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I'm against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.

Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.

Acquainted with the Night I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain—and back in rain. I have outwalked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly height, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with.

My goal in life is to unite my avocation with my vocation, As my two eyes make one in sight.

I would not come in. I meant not even if asked, And I hadn't been.

My sorrow, when she's here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.

The mind-is not the heart. I may yet live, as I know others live, To wish in vain to let go with the mind- Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells me That I need learn to let go with the heart.

Hope is not found in a way out but a way through.

Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.

I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~ And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more, But dipped its top and set me down again. That would be good both going and coming back. One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

Fireflies in the Garden By Robert Frost 1874–1963 Here come real stars to fill the upper skies, And here on earth come emulating flies, That though they never equal stars in size, (And they were never really stars at heart) Achieve at times a very star-like start. Only, of course, they can't sustain the part.

It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage...

The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength. To feel the earth as rough to all my length

So was I once myself a swinger of birches. And so I dream of going back to be.

Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.

You, of course, are a rose-- But were always a rose.

INTO MY OWN One of my wishes is that those dark trees, So old and firm they scarcely show the breeze, Were not, as ’twere, the merest mask of gloom, But stretched away unto the edge of doom. I should not be withheld but that some day Into their vastness I should steal away, Fearless of ever finding open land, Or highway where the slow wheel pours the sand. I do not see why I should e’er turn back, Or those should not set forth upon my track To overtake me, who should miss me here And long to know if still I held them dear. They would not find me changed from him they knew— Only more sure of all I thought was true.

God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown, But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown. And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live, And said "To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give. Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend, But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end." God's Garden

GATHERING LEAVES Spades take up leaves No better than spoons, And bags full of leaves Are light as balloons. I make a great noise Of rustling all day Like rabbit and deer Running away. But the mountains I raise Elude my embrace, Flowing over my arms And into my face. I may load and unload Again and again Till I fill the whole shed, And what have I then? Next to nothing for weight, And since they grew duller From contact with earth, Next to nothing for color. Next to nothing for use. But a crop is a crop, And who's to say where The harvest shall stop?

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be.

To Earthward" Love at the lips was touch As sweet as I could bear; And once that seemed too much; I lived on air That crossed me from sweet things, The flow of--was it musk From hidden grapevine springs Downhill at dusk? I had the swirl and ache From sprays of honeysuckle That when they're gathered shake Dew on the knuckle. I craved strong sweets, but those Seemed strong when I was young; The petal of the rose It was that stung. Now no joy but lacks salt, That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove. When stiff and sore and scarred I take away my hand From leaning on it hard In grass and sand, The hurt is not enough: I long for weight and strength To feel the earth as rough To all my length.