Robert Frost Quotes

“Poetry is the renewal of words, setting them free, and that's what a poet is doing: loosening the words.”

“Poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation.”

“I've given offense by saying I'd as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

“There are three things, after all, that a poem must reach: the eye, the ear, and what we may call the heart or the mind. It is the most important of all to reach the heart of the reader.”

“It takes all sorts of in and outdoor schooling To get adapted to my kind of fooling.”

“Anything more than the truth would have seemed too weak.”

“The Vermont mountains stretch extended straight; New Hampshire mountains curl up in a coil.”

“A poem begins with a lump in the throat”

“The rose is a rose,And was always a rose.But the theory now goesThat the apple's a rose,And the pear is, and so'sThe plum, I suppose.The dear only knowsWhat will next prove a rose.You, of course, are a rose -But were always a rose.”

“A breeze discovered my open book And began to flutter the leaves to look”

“The best thing we're put here for's to see; The strongest thing that's given us to see with's a telescope. Someone in every town, seems to me, owes it to the town to keep one.”

“Courage is in the air in bracing whiffsBetter than all the stalemate an's and ifs.”

“Poets like Shakespeare know more about poetry than any $25 an hour man.”

“I never take my own side in a quarrel.”

“Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.”

“Sarcastic Science, she would like to know,In her complacent ministry of fear,How we propose to get away from hereWhen she has made things so we have to goOr be wiped out. Will she be asked to showUs how by rocket we may hope to steerTo some star off there, say, a half light-yearThrough temperature of absolute zero?Why wait for Science to supply the howWhen any amateur can tell it now?The way to go away should be the sameAs fifty million years ago we came-If anyone remembers how that wasI have a theory, but it hardly does.”

“(Soft petals, yes, but not so barren quite,Mingled with these, smooth bean and wrinkled pea;)And go along with you ere you lose sightOf what you came for and become like me,Slave to a springtime passion for the earth.How love burns through the Putting in the SeedOn through the watching for that early birthWhen, just as the soil tarnishes with weed,The sturdy seedling with arched body comesShouldering its way and shedding the earth crumbs.”

“... A nation has to take its natural courseOf Progress round and round in circlesFrom King to Mob to King to Mob to KingUntil the eddy of it eddies out.”

“Leaves and bark, leaves and bark,To lean against and hear in the dark.Petals I may have once pursued.Leaves are all my darker mood.”

“The ear is the only true writer and the only true reader.”

“The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

“What makes a nation in the beginning is a good piece of geography.”

“The truth is the river flows into the canyonOf Ceasing-to-Question-What-Doesn't-Concern-Us,As sooner or later we have to cease somewhere.”

“I could give all to Time except--exceptWhat I myself have held.”

“Suddenly, quietly, you realize that - from this moment forth - you will no longer walk through this life alone. Like a new sun this awareness arises within you, freeing you from fear, opening your life. It is the beginning of love, and the end of all that came before.”