Robert Frost

26 March 1874 – 29 January 1963 · American poet · four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry

Robert Frost was born in San Francisco on 26 March 1874 and died in Boston on 29 January 1963. He is the only poet to have won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry — for New Hampshire (1924), Collected Poems (1931), A Further Range (1937) and A Witness Tree (1943) — and wrote “Mending Wall”, “The Road Not Taken” and “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening”. He is also a magnet for sayings he never wrote. His public persona — the plain-spoken New England sage, much interviewed in old age — makes brisk, homely wisdom sound like him, and a good deal of it has been attached to his name on no evidence at all. This line is among the better-supported cases, but it still reaches us through a reporter rather than through Frost.

Traced to source

10 quotes we’ve traced to Robert Frost

“The best way out is always through”

Verified

“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less traveled by”

Verified

“Writing free verse is like playing tennis with the net down”

Verified

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

Attributed

“In three words I can sum up everything I have learned about life: it goes on”

Attributed

“In three words I can sum up everything I've learned about life: it goes on”

Attributed

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

Disputed

“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age”

Disputed

“A liberal is a man too broadminded to take his own side in a quarrel”

Disputed

“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”

Disputed

Not actually Robert Frost

Often misattributed to Robert Frost

Famous lines widely pinned on Robert Frost that we’ve traced to someone else.

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

actually Unknown — the saying is anonymous

“A diplomat is a man who always remembers a woman's birthday but never remembers her age”

actually No verified author

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

actually Robert Quillen

“Dancing is a perpendicular expression of a horizontal desire”

actually Unknown

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”

actually Muriel Strode

“Don't aim for success if you want it. Just do what you love and believe in, and it will come naturally”

actually David Frost

“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”

actually Unknown

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