Quotes from Robert Frost

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.

Have I not walked without an upward lookOf caution under stars that very wellMight not have missed me when they shot and fell?It was a risk I had to take—and took.

The land was ours before we were the land's.She was our land more than a hundred yearsBefore we were her people.

The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.

But strictly held by none, is loosely boundBy countless silken ties of love and thoughtTo everything on earth the compass round,And only by one's going slightly tautIn the capriciousness of summer airIs of the slightest bondage made aware.

If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.

Any eye is an evil eyeThat looks in on to a mood apart.

I'd just as soon play tennis with the net down.

I shall set forth for somewhere,I shall make the reckless choiceSome say when they are in voiceAnd tossing so as to scareThe white clouds over them on,I shall have less to say,But I shall be gone.

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.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.

The trees that have it in their pent-up buds To darken nature and be summer woods -

Here are your waters and your watering place.Drink and be whole again beyond confusion.

All those who try to go it sole alone,Too proud to be beholden for relief,Are absolutely sure to come to grief.

A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.

And nothing to look backward to with pride,And nothing to look forward to with hope.

Don't join too many gangs. Join few if any.Join the United States and join the family—But not much in between unless a college.

I go to school the youth to learn the future.

First there's the children's house of make believe,Some shattered dishes underneath a pine,The playthings in the playhouse of the children.Weep for what little things could make them glad.

O hushed October morning mild, Begin the hours of this day slow, Make the day seem to us less brief... Retard the sun with gentle mist; Enchant the land with amethyst...

I never dared to be radical when youngFor fear it would make me conservative when old.

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

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.

You're searching... For things that don't exist; I mean beginnings. Ends and beginnings — there are no such things. There are only middles.

Tree at my window, window tree,My sash is lowered when night comes on;But let there never be curtain drawnBetween you and me.