Straight from today’s Quotle — here’s who really said it, and the story behind it. Play again

Who really said it

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

Not Robert Frost — Muriel Strode, reworded Muriel Strode 1875–1964 · American poet
Disputed 1903 wording free to reuse

Robert Frost is one of several famous names this line gets pinned to, and Quote Investigator ↗, whose chronology documents no source for any of them, traces the saying instead to a page of aphorisms by the American poet Muriel Strode printed in the Chicago journal The Open Court in August 1903. Strode wrote it as a vow in the first person — “I will not follow where the path may lead…” — and the familiar imperative wording is a later, unascribed rewrite.

Last verified 9 Sep 2026 · how we verify · spot an error?

For presentations

Put it on a slide

Disputed credit — copy with the correction

“Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” Muriel Strode, "Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers," The Open Court, vol. 17, no. 8 (August 1903), p. 505. Her original wording: "I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail." Not Robert Frost, and not Emerson — the imperative version is a later, unascribed rewrite. Via Quotle.info

The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to Robert Frost. Use the credit shown above instead.

Can you use it?

Strode’s 1903 wording is public domain — free to use, including in commercial and paid presentations, with no permission or licence needed. The later imperative rewrite is not her wording and has no identified author, so nothing here establishes who, if anyone, holds rights in that phrasing.

Image direction — grounded in this quote’s real context; paste into your image tool

In context

Evoking the world of Muriel Strode — American poet. Theme: "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Minimalist

Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.

Provenance

The 1903 original

Work
“Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers”
Author
Muriel Strode
Published
The Open Court, Volume 17, Number 8 (August 1903), page 505 — The Open Court Publishing Company, Chicago
Popular wording
An imperative rewrite of Strode’s first-person line; in print unascribed by 1983, credited to Emerson from 1992

I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.

Infinitely will I trust nature’s instincts and promptings, but I will not call my own perversions nature.

Each receives but that which is his own returning.
Each hears but that which is the echo of his own call.
Each feels but that which has eaten into his own heart. Original wording

The opening aphorisms of the poem as printed in the “Miscellaneous” section of The Open Court, August 1903, transcribed from the scanned issue.

Scanned journal issue
The Open Court, August 1903, at the Internet Archive
Quote Investigator’s chronology of the saying

How we verified this

  • August 1903 — the first strong match. Muriel Strode’s “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers” appears in The Open Court, opening with the line in the first person. Read the scanned issue ↗.
  • The specialist verdict. Quote Investigator ↗ tentatively credits Strode with originating the statement, notes that Fred V. Hawley spoke a different version a month later, and concludes that the Emerson linkage — and by extension the other famous credits — is not substantive.
  • 1983 to 1992 — the rewrite takes hold. The modern imperative wording turns up unascribed in a 1983 yearbook; the first Emerson credit Quote Investigator has found is a January 1992 Middle School Journal caption. Barry Popik’s entry ↗ reaches the same conclusion about Emerson.
  • Still circulating under the wrong name. Goodreads carries the imperative version credited to Emerson ↗, while poetry-quote sites print it credited to Robert Frost ↗.
Public domain

The source we cite and quote — The Open Court, Volume 17, Number 8, August 1903 — was published in the United States long before 1931, so Muriel Strode’s original text is in the public domain. One honest caveat: the familiar imperative rewrite is not Strode’s wording and no author for it has ever been identified, so nothing here establishes who, if anyone, holds rights in that later phrasing.

Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.

Fact-check

Two famous names, neither of them right

This saying attracts big names the way a magnet attracts filings. Quote Investigator’s inquiry opens by listing the people it gets pinned on — Emerson, George Eliot, Robert Frost, George Bernard Shaw — and its chronology documents no source for any of them; the verdict it states outright, that the linkage is “not substantive,” is about Emerson.

Robert Frost No evidence

Quote sites still print “Do not follow where the path may lead… Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail” over Frost’s name — here is one doing it ↗. Quote Investigator ↗ names Frost among the occasional credits and documents no source for the attribution; the line was already in print in 1903, under Muriel Strode’s name.

Ralph Waldo Emerson Not in his works

Quote Investigator quotes the reference author Ralph Keyes on the Emerson claim — no source for it has ever been found in Emerson’s works — and concurs that the linkage is not substantive. The earliest Emerson credit QI has located is a caption in Middle School Journal in January 1992, many years after his death ↗. Barry Popik ↗ reaches the same conclusion.

“The Road Not Taken” Different poem

Frost’s two-roads poem was first published in the August 1915 Atlantic Monthly and opened Mountain Interval in 1916 ↗. It is about a choice between two existing roads and contains no line about making a path or leaving a trail — but it is very likely why Frost’s name gets attached here at all.

Andrew Taylor Still Later speaker

At the American Osteopathic Association’s 1905 annual meeting a four-line sung version was credited to Still, the founder of osteopathy, as Quote Investigator records ↗. That was after Strode’s poem was already in print, and after the Rev. Fred V. Hawley had sung a near-identical version at a Unitarian conference in September 1903.

The trail leads to Muriel Strode, “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers,” The Open Court, August 1903 ↗ — and Quote Investigator credits her only tentatively, leaving room for future research to find something earlier.

Context

How a vow became a command

The sentence people put on graduation cards is a rewrite of something quieter. In August 1903 the Chicago journal The Open Court printed a page of aphorisms called “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers” by Muriel Strode, and the first of them ran: “I will not follow where the path may lead, but I will go where there is no path, and I will leave a trail.” It is a vow the speaker makes about herself, not an instruction issued to anyone else.

Somewhere between the journal and the poster shop the vow turned into a command. Quote Investigator’s chronology ↗ finds the modern imperative wording in print with no ascription at all in a 1983 medical-school yearbook, and the first credit to Ralph Waldo Emerson — the name it usually carries today — in a January 1992 issue of Middle School Journal. Robert Frost picks up the overflow, an easy slip given that his best-known poem is about choosing between two roads.

“I will not follow where the path may lead…” — Muriel Strode, 1903

The line’s early travels, before anyone said “Emerson”

September 1903. At a national conference of Unitarian churches in Atlantic City, the Rev. Fred V. Hawley quoted a sung four-line version — “I need not follow the beaten path; / I do not hunt for any path; / I will go where there is no path, / And leave a trail” — a month after Strode’s poem appeared, per Quote Investigator ↗.

August 1905. The same four-line version was spoken at the American Osteopathic Association’s annual meeting in Colorado and there credited to Andrew Taylor Still, the founder of osteopathy, according to Quote Investigator’s chronology. Strode’s own line was reprinted in My Little Book of Prayer (copyright 1904) and, credited to her by name, in the New York State Journal of Medicine in July 1906.

1984 and after. A United Press International profile of the country singer Bill Anderson described a picture above his desk carrying a shortened form of the saying; by September 1992 a Pennsylvania middle school had hung the modern wording on a new sign above its office in foot-high red cursive letters, with Emerson’s name attached.

Explore

Filed under

More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.

Courage Creativity Purpose

Go further

Dig deeper

Trusted places to keep pulling the thread — primary archives, fact-checks, and scholarship. We show how we used each one before you leave.

Quote Investigator: I Will Go Where There Is No Path, and I Will Leave a Trailquoteinvestigator.com

The anchor investigation: full dated chronology from 1882 to 2006, Ralph Keyes on the Emerson problem, and the tentative credit to Muriel Strode.
The Open Court, August 1903 (scanned issue)archive.org

The primary source. Strode’s “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers” sits in the Miscellaneous section, opening with the line in its original first-person form.
The Big Apple: “Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail”barrypopik.com

Barry Popik’s entry, which located several of Quote Investigator’s citations; states flatly that Emerson never wrote it.
“Wind-Wafted Flowers” by Muriel Strode — journal recordopensiuc.lib.siu.edu

Southern Illinois University’s catalogue record for the article in its digitised run of The Open Court, with the recommended citation.
Who Is Muriel Strode?quotegarden.com

The fullest readily available biography: dates, birthplace, marriage, and her four books — plus the note that the Emerson credit took hold in the 1990s.
The Road Not Takenen.wikipedia.org

Frost’s actual two-roads poem, first published in the August 1915 Atlantic Monthly and opening Mountain Interval in 1916 — the poem this saying gets confused with.

The true author

Who actually wrote it

Muriel Strode

1875–1964 · American poet

Muriel Strode was born in Bernadotte Township, Illinois, in 1875 and married Samuel David Lieberman in 1908, but published throughout under her birth name. Her books include My Little Book of Prayer (copyright 1904), My Little Book of Life (1912), A Soul’s Faring (1921) and At the Roots of Grasses (1923). She has no Wikipedia entry and very little surviving biography — and the one sentence of hers that everyone knows travels under other people’s names.

For writers & researchers

Cite this

Primary source

Muriel Strode, “Wind-Wafted Wild Flowers,” The Open Court 17, no. 8 (August 1903): 505. The popular imperative wording is a later rewrite; the earliest instance of this exact wording in Quote Investigator’s chronology is a January 1992 Middle School Journal caption, while a close variant (“Do not follow where the path may lead…”) appears without ascription in a 1983 University of Michigan Medical School yearbook.

This verification page

Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail’?” Last verified 9 Sep 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/do-not-go-where-the-path-may-lead-go-instead-where-there-is/

Something wrong on this page?

Tell us what’s off. A link helps but isn’t required — “this is the wrong person” is a useful report on its own. Nothing here changes the page directly; it goes to our review queue and a human checks it.

Only used to tell you if we act on your report. We never sell or share it.

Copied