Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in Bartlett's Book of Love Quotations (1994)
Undated
Lives of the Poets : The Story of One Thousand Years of English and American Poetry (1959) by Louis Untermeyer
1950s
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in Bartlett's Book of Love Quotations (1994)
Undated
“If I give you a hint and tell you it's a hint, it will be information.”
Diana Wynne Jones book Howl's Moving Castle
Source: Howl's Moving Castle
“Families break up when they get hints you don't intend and miss hints that you do.”
Robert Frost (1874–1963) American poet
As quoted in Bartlett's Book of Love Quotations (1994) <!-- cited either to "Comment" or as a comment, this may have been attributed to Frost at least as early as 1962-->
General sources
Context: The greatest thing in family life is to take a hint when a hint is intended — and not to take a hint when a hint isn't intended.
“It is beginning to be hinted that we are a nation of amateurs.”
Archibald Primrose, 5th Earl of Rosebery (1847–1929) British politician
Rectorial Address, Glasgow (November 16, 1900), reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
“Mark in the meadows the ruin of Time;
Take the hint, and let life be improv'd in its prime.”
Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield (1694–1773) British statesman and man of letters
"Advice to a Lady in Autumn", published in A Collection of Poems in Six Volumes. By Several Hands. Vol. I. (1763), printed by J. Hughs, for R. and J. Dodsley
Steve Perry (1947) American writer
Jo nodded. No surprise there. Sex had sold stuff ever since stuff had been around.
Source: The Vastalimi Gambit (2013), Chapter 3
“One of the most difficult things in the world is to learn to take a hint easily.”
E. W. Howe (1853–1937) Novelist, magazine and newspaper editor
County Town Sayings (1911), p111.
“There were incidents and accidents
There were hints and allegations…”
Paul Simon (1941) American musician, songwriter and producer
You Can Call Me Al
Song lyrics, Graceland (1986)
“Irony is the first hint that consciousness became conscious.”
Fernando Pessoa book The Book of Disquiet
Ibid., p. 151
The Book of Disquiet
Original: A ironia é o primeiro indício de que a consciência se tornou consciente.