Robert Frost

“The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom... in a clarification of life - not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion. ”

“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom. ”

“Come over the hills and far with meAnd be my love in the rain.”

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

“Two such as you with such a master speedCannot be parted nor be swept away”

“The ArmfulFor every parcel I stoop down to seizeI lose some other off my arms and knees,And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns,Extremes too hard to comprehend at. onceYet nothing I should care to leave behind.With all I have to hold with hand and mindAnd heart, if need be, I will do my best.To keep their building balanced at my breast.I crouch down to prevent them as they fall;Then sit down in the middle of them all.I had to drop the armful in the roadAnd try to stack them in a better load.”

“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.”

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

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

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

“THE FIGURE A POEM MAKESNo one can really hold that ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life- Not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.”

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

“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.”

“The line storm clouds fly tattered and swift,The road is forlorn all day,...”

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

“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.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Only where love and need are one,And the work is play for mortal stakesIs the deed ever truly doneFor Heaven and the future's sakes”

“I only hope that when I am free, as they are free to go in quest, of the knowledge beyond the bounds of life, it may not seem better to me to rest.”

“poets are like baseball pitchers. both have their moments. the intervals are the tough things.”

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

“Our life runs down in sending up the clock.The brook runs down in sending up our life.The sun runs down in sending up the brook.And there is something sending up the sun.It is this backward motion toward the source,Against the stream, that most we see ourselves in,The tribute of the current to the source.It is from this in nature we are from.It is most us.”

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

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

“But yield who will their separation,My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.Only where love and need are one,And the work is play for mortal stakes,Is the deed ever really doneFor Heaven and the future's sakes.”

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

“But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.”

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

“Good fences make good neighbors.”

“Our very life depends on everythings' recurring til we answer from within.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”

“The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.”

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

“En un bosque se bifurcaron dos caminos, y yo... Yo tomé el menos transitado. Esto marcó toda la diferencia.”

“Nobody was ever meant to remember or invent what he did with every cent. ”

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

“For I have had too muchOf apple-picking:I am overtiredOf the great harvest I myself desired.”

“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 beatAnd dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain.”

“Freedom lies in being bold.”

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

“Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes all the pressure off the second.”

“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.”