Robert Frost Thinking Quotations

Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.

He knew a path that wanted walking; He knew a spring that wanted drinking; A thought that wanted further thinking

Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That is voting.

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.

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

When I see birches bend to left and right... I like to think some boy's been swinging them.

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

The tree the tempest with a crash of wood Throws down in front of us is not to bar Our passage to our journey's end for good, But just to ask us who we think we are....

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.

Thinking isn't agreeing or disagreeing. That's voting.

Poetry is play. I'd even rather have you think of it as a sport. For instance, like football.

The sister's face Fell all in wrinkles of responsibility. She wanted to do right. She'd have to think.

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.

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.

Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away / You'd think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.