Thursday, November 21, 2013

Interesting quotes of Robert FROST

There are many famous words said by Robert Frost. We may be very familiar with these words without knowing the author. Here are some of them that I prefer:

1. A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
2. Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
3. 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.
4. A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
5. 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.
6. Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
7. Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
8. Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
9. The father is always a Republican toward his son, and his mother's always a Democrat.
10. Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.
11. It's a funny thing that when a man hasn't anything on earth to worry about, he goes off and gets married.
12. The world is full of willing people; some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.
13. I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.
14. Education doesn't change life much. It just lifts trouble to a higher plane of regard.
15. To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
16. A jury consists of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.
17. I would have written of me on my stone: I had a lover's quarrel with the world.
18. The reason why worry kills more people than work is that more people worry than work.
19. To be social is to be forgiving.
20. A poet never takes notes. You never take notes in a love affair.
21. College is a refuge from hasty judgment.
22. Humor is the most engaging cowardice.
23. The only certain freedom's in departure.
24. We love things we love what they are.

I had a lovers quarrel with the world.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost_3.html#Ji6RJEvlIe4M9yZ3.99

To be a poet is a condition, not a profession.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost_2.html#pUUXYbRtpZdGlU2x.99

Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee, and I'll forgive Thy great big joke on me.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost_2.html#pUUXYbRtpZdGlU2x.99

Robert Frost Quotes

In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on.
Robert Frost

Life, Words, Learned

Freedom lies in being bold.
Robert Frost

Freedom, Lies, Bold

Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.
Robert Frost

Education, Losing, Almost

By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
Robert Frost

Work, May, Working

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
Robert Frost

Mother, Fool, Woman

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.
Robert Frost

Work, Morning, Brain

Two roads diverged in a wood and I - I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.
Robert Frost

Less, Difference, Took

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

Forgive, Sense, Talk

The best way out is always through.
Robert Frost

Inspirational, Best

Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.
Robert Frost

Love, Desire, Desired

But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost

Sleep, Keep, Promises

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.
Robert Frost

Sleep, Deep, Dark

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.
Robert Frost

Saying, Keep, Half

A person will sometimes devote all his life to the development of one part of his body - the wishbone.
Robert Frost

Life, Sometimes, Body

A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age.
Robert Frost

Age, Birthday, Woman

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.
Robert Frost

Family, Life, Greatest

A bank is a place where they lend you an umbrella in fair weather and ask for it back when it begins to rain.
Robert Frost

Rain, Place, Weather

Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost

Home, Place

Poetry is when an emotion has found its thought and the thought has found words.
Robert Frost

Poetry, Words, Found

Don't ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.
Robert Frost

Why, Until, Fence

I'm not confused. I'm just well mixed.
Robert Frost

Confused, Mixed

A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.
Robert Frost

Wisdom, Begins, Ends

A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness.

A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/r/robert_frost.html#Cj3Ao4wQJJ9JHR5M.99v

A song of love and death by Robert FROST

My butterfly

Robert FROST

Thine emulous fond flowers are dead, too,
And the daft sun-assaulter, he
That frighted thee so oft, is fled or dead:
Save only me (Nor is it sad to thee!)
Save only me
There is none left to mourn thee in the fields.

The gray grass is not dappled with the snow;
Its two banks have not shut upon the river;
But it is long ago--
It seems forever--
Since first I saw thee glance,
With all the dazzling other ones,
In airy dalliance,
Precipitate in love,
Tossed, tangled, whirled and whirled above,
Like a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance.

When that was, the soft mist
Of my regret hung not on all the land,
And I was glad for thee,
And glad for me, I wist.

Thou didst not know, who tottered, wandering on high,
That fate had made thee for the pleasure of the wind,
With those great careless wings,
Nor yet did I.
And there were other things:
It seemed God let thee flutter from his gentle clasp:
Then fearful he had let thee win Too far beyond him to be gathered in,
Snatched thee, o'er eager, with ungentle grasp.

Ah! I remember me
How once conspiracy was rife
Against my life--
The languor of it and the dreaming fond;
Surging, the grasses dizzied me of thought,
The breeze three odors brought,
And a gem-flower waved in a wand!

Then when I was distraught
And could not speak,
Sidelong, full on my cheek,
What should that reckless zephyr fling
But the wild touch of thy dye-dusty wing!

I found that wing broken to-day!
For thou are dead, I said,
And the strange birds say.
I found it with the withered leaves
Under the eaves.

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This was the first poem that Robert Frost sold in 1894. It was published in the New York Independent for $15 ($405 today). Proud of his accomplishment, he proposed marriage to Elinor Miriam White. She refused his proposal, wanting to finish first her college. He then went on a journey to the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. Upon his return, he proposed marriage another time to Elinor. Having graduated, she agreed this time.[1]

In this poem, Frost mourns a butterfly that he loved and which now has died. Just at the beginning, the sorrowful scene already indicates what has happened: something that he loves is dead. Then it turns out to be a butterfly that the poet has seen in the past. He recalls how he fell in love with this beautiful creature on a warm and windy day. His butterfly was like "a limp rose-wreath in a fairy dance". How could he imagine at the time that his butterfly might die one day? He wonders why it would disappear. Perhaps it is a conspiracy of the wind? Perhaps it is God who wants to take it back? The poet cannot help but think that its death is destined.

Frost would not simply express his feelings for a butterfly. There has to be some metaphors in this poem. In my opinion, the butterfly can be a broken love. When two people fall in love with each other, the intense emotions make them carefree and they would never imagine the end of their love. Love can be very beautiful when everything goes right. But finally it may end for all kinds of reasons. They may look back and think, "How funny it is to have thought that this love would last forever and maybe it is a joke of God."

Why would Frost write such a poem? The inspiration was probably derived from his love for Elinor. This poem expressed his anxieties about this relation. They were in love and happy. But how could he be sure that their love would not end up in a tragedy like the "butterfly"? How could he know if God would not try to grasp his butterfly, their love for each other? This feeling might have pushed him to write this poem and propose to Elinor, his butterfly.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Frost

Thursday, November 7, 2013

A philosophical thinking of Robert FROST

The Road Not Taken

Robert FROST

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;

Then took the other, as just as fair
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

***************************************************************************
Standing at the fork of two roads in a yellow wood means to be confronted in front of an important choice of life. There are two ways to choose. The future is uncertain like the end of a road covered by trees. He wants to foresee the future and he hesitates to making decisions.

But how can you human predict the future ? What you see is just the present and numerous precursors, who have left some traces. However the traces are blurred by the time. So he just picks one way which is less travailed. He comforts himself by saying that "I leave the first one for another day? But will he return back? I don't think so and neither does he. The life is always a one-way travel and we can never return. He might have ask himself,"is this a good choice?" I think that he can never answer this question. How can we judge a decision in life without a second life, where we make the other decision, to compare?

This reminds me of an interesting argument in a book called "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" by Milan Kundera. He says that we can never judge a choice as we cannot have a second life to compare. It is a quite philosophical reflection. We make choices after choices. So our life become one of hundreds of thousands of possible "lives". We may sometimes look back and ask ourselves, "what if I have made another decision?" The question can never be answered. Maybe we will sigh, "my life would have been another story if..." These decisions make all the differences and kill all the other possibilities at the same time. These possibilities become our dreams when we look back. And this is beauty of life.