Top 484 Quotes & Sayings by Robert Frost - Page 7

God turned to speak to me (Don't anybody laugh); God found I wasn't there At least not over half.

The snake stood up for evil in the Garden.

Democracy is the best chance for the best people.

Poetry is a reaching out forward expression, an effort to find fulfillment

Everyone asks for freedom for himself, The man free love, the businessman free trade, The writer and talker free speech and free press.

No, in country money, the country scale of gain, The requisite lift of spirit has never been found.

Nothing not built with hands of course is sacred. But here is not a question of what's sacred; Rather of what to face or run away from. I'd hate to be a runaway from nature.

I think I know enough of hate to say that for destruction ice is also great and would suffice.

Not to sink under being man and wife, But get some color and music out of life?

States strong enough to do good are but few. Their number would seem limited to three.

Trust him to have his bitter politics Against his unacquaintances the rich Who sleep in houses of their own, though mortgaged. Conservatives, they don't know what to save.

Live and let live, believe and let believe. 'Twas said the lesser gods were only traits Of the one awful God. Just so the saints Are God's white light refracted into colors.

Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich.

Everything written is as good as it is dramatic. It need not declare itself in form, but it is drama or nothing.

The rose is a rose, And was always a rose. But the theory now goes That the apple's a rose.

Far in the pillared dark Thrush music went- Almost like a call to come in To 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.

I have just been to a city in the West, a city full of poets, a city they have made safe for poets. The whole city is so lovely that you do not have to write it up to make it poetry; it is ready-made for you. But, I don't know - the poetry written in that city might not seem like poetry if read outside of the city. It would be like the jokes made when you were drunk; you have to get drunk again to appreciate them.

I'd like to get away from earth awhile / And then come back to it and begin over.

A man has got to keep his extrication. The important thing is not to get bogged down In what he has to do to earn a living.

I am assured at any rate Man's practically inexterminate. Someday I must go into that. There's always been an Ararat Where someone someone else begat To start the world all over at.

I hate the idea that you ought to read the whole of anybody.

Heaven gives its glimpses only to those not in position to look too close.

How are we to write The Russian novel in America As long as life goes so unterribly?

The city is all right. To live in one Is to be civilized, stay up and read Or sing and dance all night and see sunrise By waiting up instead of getting up.

... War is for everyone, for children too. I wasn't going to tell you and I mustn't. The best way is to come uphill with me And have our fire and laugh and be afraid.

For I thought Epicurus and Lucretius By Nature meant the Whole Goddam Machinery.

I have been one acquainted with the night. I have walked out in rain - and back in rain. I have out walked the furthest city light. I have looked down the saddest city lane. I have passed by the watchman on his beat And dropped my eyes, unwilling to explain. I have stood still and stopped the sound of feet. When far away an interrupted cry Came over houses from another street, But not to call me back or say good-bye; And further still at an unearthly light, One luminary clock against the sky Proclaimed the time was neither wrong nor right. I have been one acquainted with the night.

The difference between a man and his valet: they both smoke the same cigars, but only one pays for them.

What are we? Young or new? We must be something.

Poets need not go to Niagara to write about the force of falling water.

There would be more than ocean-water broken Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken.

Haven't you heard, though, About the ships where war has found them out At sea, about the towns where war has come Through opening clouds at night with droning speed Further o'erhead than all but stars and angels And children in the ships and in the towns?

But I may be one who does not care Ever to have tree bloom or bear.

New is a word for fools in towns who think Style upon style in dress and thought at last Must get somewhere.

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

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.

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.

Now close the windows and hush all the fields: If the trees must, let them silently toss.

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.

It comes down to a doubt about the wisdom Of having children after having had them, So there is nothing we can do about it But warn the children they perhaps should have none.

Yet some say Love by being thrall And simply staying possesses all In several beauty that Thought fares far To find fused in another star.

I never take my own side in a quarrel.

Some spirit to stand simply forth, Heroic in its nakedness, Against the uttermost of earth.

Love has earth to which she clings.

There is no love. There's only love of men and women, love Of children, love of friends, of men, of God: Divine love, human love, parental love, Roughly discriminated for the rough.

A true sonnet goes eight lines and then takes a turn for better or worse and goes six or eight lines more.

A name with meaning could bring up a child, Taking the child out of the parents' hands. Better a meaningless name, I should say, As leaving more to nature and happy chance. Name children some names and see what you do.

Let those possess the land, and only those, Who love it with a love so strong and stupid That they may be abused and taken advantage of And made fun of by business, law, and art.

When I was young, I was so interested in baseball that my family was afraid I'd waste my life and be a pitcher. Later they were afraid I'd waste my life and be a poet. They were right.

Now no joy but lacks salt That is not dashed with pain And weariness and fault; I crave the stain Of tears, the aftermark Of almost too much love, The sweet of bitter bark And burning clove.

I could define poetry this way: it is that which is lost out of both prose and verse in translation.

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

Before now poetry has taken notice Of wars, and what are wars but politics Transformed from chronic to acute and bloody?

He thought that I was after him for a feather--- The white one in his tail: like one who takes everything said as personal to himself.

If one by one we counted people out

When the spent sun throws up its rays on cloud And goes down burning into the gulf below, No voice in nature is heard to cry aloud At what has happened. Birds, at least must know It is the change to darkness in the sky. Murmuring something quiet in her breast, One bird begins to close a faded eye; Or overtaken too far from his nest, Hurrying low above the grove, some waif Swoops just in time to his remembered tree. At most he thinks or twitters softly, 'Safe! Now let the night be dark for all of me. Let the night be too dark for me to see Into the future. Let what will be, be.

"If it were a dog, it would have bitten you already." Actual Twents: "At e ne hond was, dan e oew allange ebettene." Meaning: Said to someone who is looking for something which is right under his nose. Source: Twents Woordenbook. Twents in Woord en Gebruik.

We're either nothing or a God's regret.

At bottom the world isn't a joke. We only joke about it to avoid an issue with someone, to let someone know that we know he's there with his questions; to disarm him by seeming to have heard and done justice to his side of the standing argument.

Oh, come forth into the storm and rout And be my love in the rain.