Robert Frost: Quotes about thinking

Robert Frost was American poet. Explore interesting quotes on thinking.

Robert Frost: 530 quotes83 likes

“Whose woods these are I think I know.
His house is in the village, though;
He will not see me stopping here
To watch his woods fill up with snow.”

Robert Frost Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening

St. 1
Source: Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)

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

Robert Frost

Letter to Louis Untermeyer (8 July 1915)
1910s

“The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean-
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.”

Robert Frost

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

Robert Frost

“Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.”

Robert Frost Fire and Ice

"Fire and Ice" (1923)
General sources

“They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.”

Robert Frost

Directive (1947)
Context: p>As for the woods' excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.</p

“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.”

Robert Frost

General sources
Source: "The Poetry of Amy Lowell" in The Christian Science Monitor (16 May 1925)

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

Robert Frost

"The Black Cottage" (1914)
1910s

“My Sorrow, when she’s here with me,
Thinks these dark days of autumn rain
Are beautiful as days can be;
She loves the bare, the withered tree;
She walks the sodden pasture lane.”

Robert Frost

1910s, My November Guest (1915)

“I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To know that for destruction ice
Is also great”

Robert Frost

“My little horse must think it queer
To stop without a farmhouse near
Between the woods and frozen lake
The darkest evening of the year.”

Robert Frost

St. 2
1920s, Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening (1923)

“And this is no aristocratic joke
At the expense of negligible folk.
We see how seriously the races swarm
In their attempts at sovereignty and form.
They are our wards we think to some extent
For the time being and with their consent,
To teach them how Democracy is meant.”

Robert Frost

1960s, Dedication (1960)

“Something inspires the only cow of late
To make no more of a wall than an open gate,
And think no more of wall-builders than fools.”

Robert Frost

" The Cow in Apple-Time http://www.poemhunter.com/poem/cow-in-apple-time-the/" <br class="br">1910s

“'I can repeat the very words you were saying:
"Three foggy mornings and one rainy day
Will rot the best birch fence a man can build."
Think of it, talk like that at such a time!
What had how long it takes a birch to rot
To do with what was in the darkened parlor?
You couldn't care! The nearest friends can go
With anyone to death, comes so far short
They might as well not try to go at all.”

Robert Frost

1910s, Home Burial (1914)

“Poetry begins in trivial metaphors, pretty metaphors, "grace" metaphors, and goes on to the profoundest thinking that we have. Poetry provides the one permissible way of saying one thing and meaning another. People say, "Why don’t you say what you mean?" We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct.”

Robert Frost

" Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931) <br class="br">1930s

“The desolate, deserted trees,
The faded earth, the heavy sky,
The beauties she so truly sees,
She thinks I have no eye for these,
And vexes me for reason why.”

Robert Frost

1910s, My November Guest (1915)

“Never ask of money spent
Where the spender thinks it went.
Nobody was ever meant
To remember or invent
What he did with every cent.”

Robert Frost

"The Hardship of Accounting
1930s

“Till we came to be
There was not a trace
Of a thinking race
Anywhere in space.”

Robert Frost

"Kitty Hawk
1960s

Robert Frost

We never do that, do we, being all of us too much poets. We like to talk in parables and in hints and in indirections — whether from diffidence or some other instinct. <br class="br">" Education by Poetry http://www.en.utexas.edu/amlit/amlitprivate/scans/edbypo.html", speech delivered at Amherst College and subsequently revised for publication in the Amherst Graduates’ Quarterly (February 1931) <br class="br">General sources

“As for the woods' excitement over you
That sends light rustle rushes to their leaves,
Charge that to upstart inexperience.

Where were they all not twenty years ago?
They think too much of having shaded out
A few old pecker-fretted apple trees.”

Robert Frost

Directive (1947)