Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
The heart can think of no devotionGreater than being shore to the ocean-Holding the curve of one position,Counting an endless repetition.
Ah, when to the heart of man Was it ever less than a treason To go with the drift of things, To yield with a grace to reason, And bow and accept the end Of a love or a season?
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
These woods are lovely, dark and deep,But I have promises to keep,And miles to go before I sleep,And miles to go before I sleep.
And were an epitaph to be my story I’d have a short one ready for my own. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I -I took the one less traveled by,And that has made all the difference.
Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
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 behind and you jump to the skies.
We dance round in a ring and suppose,But the Secret sits in the middle and knows.
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on TheeAnd I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.
For dear me, why abandon a beliefMerely because it ceases to be true
They would not find me changed from him they knew — Only more sure of all I thought was true.
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.
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 twiceI think I know enough of hateTo say that for destruction iceIs also greatAnd would suffice.
The rain to the wind said,You push and I’ll pelt.’They so smote the garden bedThat the flowers actually knelt,And lay lodged–though not dead.I know how the flowers felt.
The way a crowShook down on meThe dust of snowFrom a hemlock treeHas given my heartA change of moodAnd saved some partOf a day I had rued.
A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
I would not come in.I meant not even if asked,And I hadn’t been.
A poem is never a put-up job, so to speak. It begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It is never a thought to begin with.
I’ve given offense by saying I’d as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.
Two such as you with such a master speedCannot be parted nor be swept awayFrom one another once you are agreedThat life is only life forevermoreTogether wing to wing and oar to oar
I could give all to Time except — exceptWhat I myself have held. But why declareThe things forbidden that while the Customs sleptI have crossed to Safety with? For I am There,And what I would not part with I have kept.
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.
But yield who will to their separation, My object in living is to uniteMy avocation and my vocationAs my two eyes make one in sight.
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
What is done is done for the love of it- or not really done at all.
The worst disease which can afflict executives in their work is not, as popularly supposed, alcoholism; it’s egotism.
Men work together,’ I told him from the heart,’Whether they work together or apart.
Nature’s first green is gold,Her hardest hue to hold.Her early leaf’s a flower;But only so an hour.Then leaf subsides to leaf.So Eden sank to grief,So dawn goes down to day.Nothing gold can stay.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load, And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed So low for long, they never right themselves.
There is one thing more exasperating than a wife who can cook and won’t, and that’s a wife who can’t cook and will.
Nobody was ever meant to remember or invent what he did with every cent.
Families break up when they get hints you don’t intend and miss hints that you do.
But bid life seize the present? It lives less in the present Than in the future always, And less in both together Than in the past. The present Is too much for the senses, Too crowding, too confusing— Too present to imagine.
Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they talk sense.
If one by one we counted people outFor the least sin, it wouldn’t take us longTo get so we had no one left to live with.For to be social is to be forgiving.
They cannot scare me with their empty spacesBetween stars—on stars where no human race is.I have it in me so much nearer homeTo scare myself with my own desert places.
He moves in darkness as it seems to meNot of woods only and the shade of trees.
How many things have to happen to you before something occurs to you?
The mind-is not the heart.I may yet live, as I know others live,To wish in vain to let go with the mind-Of cares, at night, to sleep; but nothing tells meThat I need learn to let go with the heart.
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;
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.
Lovers, forget your love,And list the love of these,She a window flower,And he a winter breeze.
More than once I should have lost my soul to radicalism if it had been the originality it was mistaken for by its young converts.
So was I once myself a swinger of birches.And so I dream of going back to be.
Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That’s voting.
It looked as if a night of dark intent was coming, and not only a night, an age. Someone had better be prepared for rage…
I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.
By faithfully working eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
I hold with those who favor fire.But if it had to perish twice,I think I know enough of hateTo know that for destruction iceIs also great
The afternoon knows what the morning never suspected.
No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader.
And on the worn book of old-golden I brought not here to read, it seems, but holdAnd freshen in this air of withering sweetness;
Originality and initiative are what I ask for my country.
Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept…. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.
You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.
Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his sons the hardships that made him rich.
I never dared be radical when young For fear it would make me conservative when old.
Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich.
Poets are like baseball pitchers. Both have their moments. The intervals are the tough things.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less travelled by And that has made all the difference.
The middle of the road is where the white line is and that’s the worst place to drive.
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.
Belief is better than anything else and it is best when rapt – above paying its respects to anybody’s doubt whatsoever.
There may be little or much beyond the grave But the strong are saying nothing until they see.
Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Home is the place when you have to go there they have to take you in.
Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.
Humour is the most engaging cowardice. With it myself I have been able to hold some of my enemy in play far out of gunshot.
An idea is a feat of association and the height of it is a good metaphor.
A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.
You’ve got to love what’s lovable and hate what’s hateable. It takes brains to see the difference.
Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
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.
You’ve got to be brave and you’ve got to be bold. Brave enough to take your chance on your own discrimination – what’s right and what’s wrong what’s good and what’s bad.
Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s. He’s more particular.
Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Poetry should be common in experience but uncommon in books.
A poem begins with a lump in the throat a homesickness or alovesickness. It is a reaching-out toward expression an effort to find fulfillment. A complete poem is one where an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.
A Liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel.
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.
The best things and best people rise out of their separateness I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
Home is the place where when you have to go there They have to take you in.
All thought is a feat of association having what’s in front of you bring up something in your mind that you almost didn’t know you knew.
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be a boss and work 12 hours a day.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
Modern poets talk against business, poor things, but all of us write for money. Beginners are subjected to trial by market.
Two roads diverged in a wood and I – I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father’s.
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.
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
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.
The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
I alone of English writers have consciously set myself to make music out of what I may call the sound of sense.
A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.
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.
Being the boss anywhere is lonely. Being a female boss in a world of mostly men is especially so.
The best things and best people rise out of their separateness I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
I often say of George Washington that he was one of the few in the whole history of the world who was not carried away by power.
I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.
If you don’t know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.
There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.
Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I’ll forgive Thy great big joke on me.
The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom… in a clarification of life – not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.
Forgive me my nonsense, as I also forgive the nonsense of those that think they talk sense.
It’s a funny thing that when a man hasn’t anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.
Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.
Poetry is about the grief. Politics is about the grievance.
Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.
Education doesn’t change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.
A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body – the wishbone.
Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.
A civilized society is one which tolerates eccentricity to the point of doubtful sanity.
If society fits you comfortably enough, you call it freedom.
The best things and best people rise out of their separateness I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.
A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.
You have freedom when you’re easy in your harness.