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Robert Frost
(26 Mar 1874 - 29 Jan 1963)
American poet.
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Science Quotes by Robert Frost (13 quotes)
As a confirmed astronomer
I’m always for a better sky.
I’m always for a better sky.
— Robert Frost
From 'The Objection to Being Stepped On', collected in Edward Connery Latham (ed.), The Poetry of Robert Frost (1971), 451.
Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offence.
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
— Robert Frost
From 'Mending Wall', in North of Boston (1914). Collected in Robert Frost and Thomas Fasano (ed.), Selected Early Poems of Robert Frost (2008), 52. Note: This passage may be the source which John F. Kennedy had in mind when he wrote in his personal notebook, "Don't ever take a fence down until you know the reason why it was put up." (see John F. Kennedy quotes on this site). The words in that terse paraphrase are those of Kennedy, and are neither those of Frost, or, as often attributed, G.K. Chesterton (q.v).
By working faithfully eight hours a day you may eventually get to be boss and work twelve hours a day.
— Robert Frost
As quoted, without citation, in U.S. Army Medical Dept, The Army Medical Bulletin (1938), 46, 38. An early instance. Webmaster has not yet been able to identify a primary source. Can you help?
For, dear me, why abandon a belief
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
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 favour.
Merely because it ceases to be true.
Cling to it long enough, and not a doubt
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 favour.
— Robert Frost
'The Black Cottage'. In Edward Connery Latham (ed.), The Poetry of Robert Frost (1971), 77.
Freedom lies in being bold.
— Robert Frost
…...
Philosophy is just a thing that trims religion—that prunes it.
— Robert Frost
From interview with Cecil Day Lewis on BBC (13 Sep 1957). Transcribed in Claremont Quarterly (Spring 1958). Collected in Interviews with Robert Frost (1967), 176.
Sarcastic Science, she would like to know,
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show
Us how by rocket we may hope to steer
To some star off there, say, a half light-year
Through temperature of absolute zero?
Why wait for Science to supply the how
When any amateur can tell it now?
The way to go away should be the same
As fifty million years ago we came—
If anyone remembers how that was
I have a theory, but it hardly does.
In her complacent ministry of fear,
How we propose to get away from here
When she has made things so we have to go
Or be wiped out. Will she be asked to show
Us how by rocket we may hope to steer
To some star off there, say, a half light-year
Through temperature of absolute zero?
Why wait for Science to supply the how
When any amateur can tell it now?
The way to go away should be the same
As fifty million years ago we came—
If anyone remembers how that was
I have a theory, but it hardly does.
— Robert Frost
'Why Wait for Science?' In Edward Connery Latham (ed.), The Poetry of Robert Frost: The Collected Poems, Complete and Unabridged (1979), 395.
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
Attributed. In Peter McDonald Slop, Oxford Dictionary of Medical Quotations (2004), 37.
There are three great things in the world: there is religion, there is science, and there is gossip.
— Robert Frost
1963, in The Timeline Book of Science by George Ochoa and Melinda Corey (1995).
There’s religion; and then there’s science; and … there’s friendly gossip. Those are … the three great things. … And … the biggest of all, is gossip-our interest in each other .
— Robert Frost
From interview with Cecil Day Lewis on BBC (13 Sep 1957). Transcribed in Claremont Quarterly (Spring 1958). Collected in Interviews with Robert Frost (1967), 176.
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.
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.
— Robert Frost
Poem, ‘Desert Places’, in Collected Poems of Robert Frost 1939 (1945), 386.
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
— Robert Frost
In poem, 'The Road Not Taken', Mountain Interval (1916), 9.
You never can tell what you have said or done till you have seen it reflected in other people’s minds.
— Robert Frost
In interview with Janet Mable, 'Education by Presence', The Christian Science Monitor (24 Dec 1925), reprinted in Interviews with Robert Frost (1966), 71.
In science it often happens that scientists say, 'You know that's a really good argument; my position is mistaken,' and then they would actually change their minds and you never hear that old view from them again. They really do it. It doesn't happen as often as it should, because scientists are human and change is sometimes painful. But it happens every day. I cannot recall the last time something like that happened in politics or religion.
(1987) -- 
