Robert Frost is without question one of the best loved of all Twentieth Century American poets. A New Englander who loved every inch of his northeastern landscape, Frost wrote about its many moods, faces and seasons . Robert Frost captured quiet scenes, slices of life and bits of wisdom in his poetry and left them behind in books of verse for us to enjoy and share. Even though his poems are often brief, even abrupt, few people today have the time to commit the words of entire poems to memory. What we can hold on to, take out and admire in our mind’s eye, are some of these great Robert Frost quotes.
From” Death of the Hired Man” When World War I was just beginning in Europe and America clung to the hope that we could remain isolated in our hemisphere out of harms way, Robert Frost created one of his best loved poems, the Death of the Hired Man. Against the background of haying time on a New England farm Frost paints the story of a farming couple and their erstwhile hired hand.
The man had left them in their time of need and was in general unreliable. In his own way however the wandering man, who seemed to know his days were numbered, made it clear that he had come “home” to die. This scenario provided Frost with the opportunity to deliver a line many still quote today about home and what it means . Says Frost: ” Home is the place where , when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” Hired hands, wayward children, anyone who has left home behind to find another life still feels the call of that place called home. Each of us knows intuitively exactly what Frost so succinctly put into words. Home, among all the other images it may create in our minds, is ultimately the place where you can go and know you will be at least taken in. The poignancy of this line makes it among those treasured as one of the great Robert Frost quotes.
From “The Road Not Taken“. Everyone can look back on their life thus far and remember decisions that they have made or directions that they have selected which in the long run proved to be pivotal. The choice of one college over another, one career instead of another, one mate over another, all of these decisions can totally flavor the rest of your days.
It is exactly this point that Robert Frost highlights in his 1916 poem, “The Road Not Taken”. As Frost put it: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I – I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.” Certainly Frost is referring in part to his own choice to become a man of poetry. There were for sure other “roads” he might have traveled. There were occupations more common in his day than those that centered on the written language. At some point in his young life a clear choice presented itself and Frost, as he intimates, “took the one less traveled by”.
As interesting as it is to consider the other roads that Frost might have traveled and to ponder over his potential for success, the poem is meant for all of us as well. These lines from “The Road Not Taken” are among the great Robert Frost quotes because they paint a vivid picture of an event that happens often more than once in each persons’ life. We walk along in a certain direction and then discover we need to make a choice . That choice can be life altering. What makes this a great Robert Frost quote is that he is able to give us a picture in nature that will allow us to go back in our minds and see ourselves as we make that choice along our own road. There is a nostalgia for ourselves latent in those words that calls us back to them again and again .
From the “Mending Wall” Among New England farmers it is a common practice to take time in spring to rebuild the stone fences that separate property and keep pastures, meadows, orchards and farmland marked off and distinct. In one of the great Robert Frost quotes , Frost makes use of this image of New England farmers reconstruction of a stone wall to consider the full meaning of what it means to place boundaries between our property and between our lives.
In the poem Frost wonders what the point of the wall really is and why it needs to constantly be rebuilt. He considers what it is that is being walled in or walled out. But eventually the poem comes around to one of its most frequently quoted lines. It is a simple sentence and one that , with just a little bit of imagination, we can hear one New England farmer saying to another. The fences it seems need to be rebuilt for a very simple reason/ It’s because ” Good fences, make good neighbors”.
Frost it seems would have us respect the individuality of our neighbor, of every man. There is something that is unique about each of us, something that is our property, something which needs not be invaded. In this poem and in this great Robert Frost quote, Frost helps us to see a truth learned by farmers over many years of fence building. Keeping to oneself allows a healthy respect for the rights and property of each man.
From “In the Clearing” Robert Frost wrote verse for more than half a century. In his poems there is much common sense and often a bit of New England tongue in cheek humor. In 1962, a year before he died, Frost produced “In the Clearing” and included in that writing a line that lives after him as one of the great Robert Frost quotes.
Looking at his position vis a vis his creator, which is not an uncommon practice among those moving along in age, Frost wrote, as if in prayer, “Forgive, O Lord my little jokes on Thee, And I’ll forgive thy great big one on me”. In these lines Frost humorously sums up the human condition. We move from day to day, generally unmindful of the silly things we do and say . But as we age we can only hope that God sees our most unpleasant actions as little indiscretions, little jokes on him . But as Frost points out it will be God who in his own way and time has the bigger joke on us when we are called home to him and find that in fact ultimate power is not in our human hands.
For readers young and old the words of Robert Frost, especially the great Robert Frost quotes, take us to another time, another place and yet seem so strangely familiar and well known to us. That was his gift, and he gave it to us.
