Quotes from Robert Frost

Far in the pillared darkThrush music went—Almost like a call to come inTo the dark and lament.But no, I was out for stars:I would not come in.I meant not even if asked,And I hadn't been.

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

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.

If you don't know how great this country is, I know someone who does Russia.

It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.

My little horse must think it queerTo stop without a farmhouse near.

Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.

Back out of all this now too much for us,Back in a time made simple by the lossOf detail, burned, dissolved, and broken offLike graveyard marble sculpture in the weather,There is a house that is no more a houseUpon a farm that is no more a farmAnd in a town that is no more a town.

Where have those flowers and butterflies all gone That science may have staked the future on? He seems to say the reason why so much Should come to nothing must be fairly faced.

The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother's always a Democrat.

That day she put our heads together,Fate had her imagination about her,Your head so much concerned with outer,Mine with inner, weather.

Why make so much of fragmentary blueIn here and there a bird, or butterfly,Or flower, or wearing-stone, or open eye,When heaven presents in sheets the solid hue?

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

Unless I'm wrongI but obeyThe urge of a song:I'm—bound—away!And I may returnIf dissatisfiedWith what I learnFrom having died.

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can tell the moment it strikes him that he has taken an immortal wound—that he will never get over it.

It looked as if a night of dark intentWas coming, and not only a night, an age.Someone had better be prepared for rage.There would be more than ocean-water brokenBefore God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

Something there is that doesn't love a wall.

The old dog barks backward without getting up.I can remember when he was a pup.

The poet, as everyone knows, must strike his individual note sometime between the ages of fifteen and twenty-five. He may hold it a long time, or a short time, but it is then that he must strike it or never. School and college have been conducted with the almost express purpose of keeping him busy with something else till the danger of his ever creating anything is past.

But these are flowers that fly and all but sing: And now from having ridden out desire They lie closed over in the wind and cling Where wheels have freshly sliced the April mire.

But not gold in commercial quantities, Just enough gold to make the engagement rings And marriage rings of those who owned the farm. What gold more innocent could one have asked for?

You don't have to deserve your mother's love. You have to deserve your father's. He is more particular.... The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother's always a Democrat.

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.

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