Robert Frost Quotes

“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.”

“Yes, and even for the past...that it will turn out to have been all right for what it was. Something I can accept. Mistakes made by the self I had to be or was not able to be.”

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting.”

“Never discuss the poem you contemplate writing. It's like turning on the outside spigot. It takes all the pressure off the upstairs bathroom.”

“I don't like to see things on purpose. I like them to soak in. A friend . . . asked me to go to the top of the Empire State Building once, and I told him that he shouldn't treat New York as a sight-it's feeling, an emotional experience. And the same with every place else.”

“I have miles to go before I sleep.”

“The woods are lovely, dark, and deep but I have promises to keep...”

“Like a piece of ice on a hot stove the poem must ride on its own melting. . . . Read it a hundred times; it will forever keep its freshness as a metal keeps its fragrance. It can never lose its sense of a meaning that once unfolded by surprise as it went.”

“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.”

“An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.”

“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.”

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

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

“Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.”

“Freedom is when you are easy in the harness.”

“Nature's never quiteSure she hasn't erredIn her vague design.”

“Tolerance is the uncomfortable feeling that in the end the other could be right.”

“I never knew what was meant by choice of words. It was one word or none.”

“'Warm in December, cold in June, you say?'I don't suppose the water's changed at all.You and I know enough to know it's warmCompared with cold, and cold compared with warm.But all the fun's in how you say a thing.”

“Before now poetry has taken noticeOf wars, and what are wars but politicsTransformed from chronic to acute and bloody?”

“So when at times the mob is swayed To carry praise or blame too far, We may choose something like a star To stay our minds on and be staid.”

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

“Skepticism, is that anything more than we used to mean when we said, Well, what have we here?”

“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.”

“The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have.”