How to Find the Love of Poetry on The Road Not Taken
One of America’s most quoted and all-time favorite poets
Known as the New England Poet, he wrote some of the most famous poetry in the world and was one of the most popular and respected poets of the twentieth century. He was honored frequently during his life, the only poet to win the Pulitzer Prize four times and awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for his poetic works in 1960.
Robert Lee Frost became one of the rare “public literary figures, almost an artistic institution.” To this day, Frost’s poem, The Road Not Taken, is read at many graduation ceremonies across America. Frost died at the age of 88 in 1963.
Following are some of my favorite quotes from Frost. I have attempted to arrange them by subject to make them easily accessible.
Poetry
“A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.”
“Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.”
“Poetry is what gets lost in translation.”
“To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.”
-
“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.”
“Two roads diverged in a wood and I — I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”
Love
“We love the things we love for what they are.”
“Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”
“What is done is done for the love of it — or not really done at all.”
“There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.”
-
“You know how cunningly mankind is planned:
We have one loving and one hating hand.
The loving’s made to hold each other like,
While with the hating other hand we strike.”
“You’ve got to love what’s loveable and hate what’s hateable. It takes brains to see the difference.”
-
“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.”
Learning and Education
“In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.”
I am a writer of books in retrospect. I talk in order to understand; I teach in order to learn.
behind and you jump to the skies.”
-
“I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.”
“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
“Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”
“The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book side for everything.”
Wisdom
“Live life like its the last breath you take for that breath is the whole essence of living, the little things in life are what connects us to all the big things we live for the best way out is always through.”
“Hope is not found in a way out but a way through.”
-
“Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.”
“A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”
“If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane.”
-
“Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”
“Before I built a wall I’d ask to know what I was walling in or walling out.”
“Thinking isn’t agreeing or disagreeing. That’s voting.”
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“How many things would you attempt if you knew you could not fail.”
“For things that don’t exist; I mean beginnings.
Ends and beginnings — there are no such things.
There are only middles.”
“Nature is always hinting at us. It hints over and over again. And suddenly we take the hint.”
-
“Something we were withholding made us weak, until we found it was ourselves.”
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.”
“The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.”
“Come grow old with me, for the best is yet to come!”
“We dance around in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.”
-
“Never cut what you can untie.”
“To be social is to be forgiving.”
“Freedom lies in being bold.”
“If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.”
Life and Human Nature
“The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.”
“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.”
“A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body — the wishbone.”
“Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.”
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“I’m not confused. I’m just well mixed.”
“It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.”
“Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
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“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.”
“Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”
“Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.”
“If one by one we counted people out, for the least sin, it wouldn’t take us long to get so we had no one left to live with. For to be social is to be forgiving.”
“The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office.”
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“By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.”
“How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?”
“They cannot scare me with their empty spaces.”
“The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”
What better ending to this article than one of Frost’s most popular poems? This poem entered the public domain in 2019 for all to share and enjoy. It has touched and changed many lives and will certainly continue to well into the future.
The Road Not Taken
By Robert Frost
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;
.
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
.
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
Bill Abbate Leadership Writer and Editor in ILLUMINATION.
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