Quotations and Poems

» Acceptance » “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 at the end of a love or a season.”

» Acceptance » “Always fall in with what you’re asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever’s going. Not against: with.”

» Achievement » “The only way around is through.”

» America » “If you don’t know how great this country is, I know someone who does; Russia.”

» Argument » “I had a lovers quarrel with the world.”

» Autumn » “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.”

» Birth » “What is this talked-of mystery of birth but being mounted bareback on the earth?”

» Books and Reading » “No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader.”

» Bosses and Employees » “By working faithfully eight hours a day, you may eventually get to be a boss and work twelve hours a day.”

» Change » “Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”

» Choice » “The first thing I do in the morning is to make my bed and while I am making up my bed I am making up my mind as to what kind of a day I am going to have.”

» Communication » “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.”

» Communication » “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall, and wants it down.”

» Confusion » “I’m not confused, I’m just well mixed.”

» Difficulties » “The best way out of a difficulty is through it.”

» Diplomacy » “A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman’s birthday but never remembers her age.”

» Draft » “Pressed into service means pressed out of shape.”

» Education » “Education is hanging around until you’ve caught on.”

» Education » “Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.”

» Epitaphs » “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.”

» Failure » “And nothing to look backward to with pride, and nothing to look forward to with hope.”

» Family » “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.”

» Fear » “There is the fear that we shan’t prove worthy in the eyes of someone who knows us at least as well as we know ourselves. That is the fear of God. And there is the fear of Man –fear that men won’t understand us and we shall be cut of from them.”

» Fights and Fighting » “Let him that is without stone among you cast the first thing he can lay his hands on.”

» Fools and Foolishness » “A mother takes twenty years to make a man of her boy, and another woman makes a fool of him in twenty minutes.”

» God » “Forgive, O Lord, my little jokes on Thee and I’ll forgive Thy great big one on me.”

» Grammar » “You can be a little ungrammatical if you come from the right part of the country.”

» Grave » “There is little much beyond the grave, but the strong are saying nothing until they see.”

» Happiness » “Happiness makes up in height for what it lacks in length.”

» Heart » “There never was any heart truly great and generous, that was not also tender and compassionate.”

» Heaven » “Heaven gives its glimpses only to those not in position to look too close.”

» Hell » “Hell is a half-filled auditorium.”

» Hell » “I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way.”

» Home » “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, They have to take you in.”

» Ideas » “An idea is a feat of association, and the height of it is a good metaphor.”

» Income » “There are few sorrows, however poignant, in which a good income is of no avail.”

» Individuality » “The best things and best people rise out of their separateness; I’m against a homogenized society because I want the cream to rise.”

» Land » “The land was ours before we were the land s. She was our land more than a hundred years before we were her people.”

» Law and Lawyers » “A successful lawsuit is the one worn by a policeman.”

» Law and Lawyers » “The jury consist of twelve persons chosen to decide who has the better lawyer.”

» Liberals » “A liberal man is too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.”

» Lies and Lying » “The middle of the road is where the white line is — and that’s the worst place to drive.”

» Life and Death » “The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

» Life and Living » “In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life. It goes on.”

» Loneliness » “One aged man — one man — can’t fill a house.”

» Losers and Losing » “Take care to sell your horse before he dies. The art of life is passing losses on.”

» Love » “Love is an irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired.”

» Marriage » “Two such as you with such a master speed cannot be parted nor be swept away from one another once you are agreed that life is only life forevermore together wing to wing and oar to oar.”

» Nationalities and Nationalism » “Americans are like a rich father who wishes he knew how to give his son the hardships that made him rich.”

» Neighbors » “Good fences make good neighbors.”

» Nonsense » “Forgive me my nonsense as I also forgive the nonsense of those who think they can talk sense.”

» Optimism » “One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.”

» Parents and Parenting » “You don’t have to deserve your mother’s love. You have to deserve your father s. He’s more particular. The father is always a Republican towards his son, and his mother’s always a Democrat.”

» Poetry and Poets » “Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down.”

» Poetry and Poets » “A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.”

» Poetry and Poets » “I would as soon write free verse as play tennis with the net down.”

» Poetry and Poets » “Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat.”

» Poetry and Poets » “Poetry is what is lost in translation.”

» Poetry and Poets » “A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness. It finds the thought and the thought finds the words.”

» Power » “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.”

» Promises » “But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

» Radicals » “I never dared to be radical when young for fear it would make me conservative when old.”

» Reason » “Don’t ever take a fence down until you know why it was put up.”

» Risk » “Two roads diverge in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”

» School » “The chief reason for going to school is to get the impression fixed for life that there is a book side for everything.”

» Secrets » “We dance round in a ring and suppose, but the secret sits in the middle and knows.”

» Skepticism » “”Skepticism,” is that anything more than we used to mean when we said, ”Well, what have we here?””

» Society » “To be social is to be forgiving.”

» Stardom » “No memory of having starred atones for later disregard, or keeps the end from being hard.”

» Teachers and Teaching » “I am not a teacher, but an awakener.”

» Thoughts and Thinking » “Thinking is not to agree or disagree. That is voting.”

» Time and Time Management » “Time and tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of 30.”

» Truth » “Why abandon a belief merely because it ceases to be true? Cling to it long enough and… it will turn true again, for so it goes. Most of the change we think we see in life is due to truths being in and out of favor.”

» Universe » “They cannot scare me with their empty spaces between stars — on stars where no human race is. I have it in me so much nearer home to scare myself with my own desert places.”

» Vanity » “Man that is of woman born is apt to be as vain has his mother.”

» Will and Will Power » “The world is full of willing people, some willing to work, the rest willing to let them.”

» Work » “The brain is a wonderful organ; it starts working the moment you get Up in the morning and does not stop until you get to the office.”

» Work » “A champion of the working man has never yet been known to die of overwork.”