Frost wrote this exact line as dialogue in “A Servant to Servants,” collected in North of Boston (1914) — confirmed against three independent copies of the original text. In the poem the words are given to a character named Len, not stated as Frost's own personal motto.
“The best way out is always through” The best way out is always through. —Robert Frost, "A Servant to Servants," North of Boston (1914)
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Evoking the world of Robert Frost — American poet, four-time Pulitzer Prize winner. Theme: "The best way out is always through". 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.
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The character Len, as quoted by the poem's narrator
Len says one steady pull more ought to do it. He says the best way out is always through. And I agree to that, or in so far As that I can see no way out but through—
from A Servant to Servants
Lines from the farm wife's monologue in “A Servant to Servants,” reporting her husband Len's outlook on their hardship.
First appears as a character's line in Robert Frost's dramatic monologue “A Servant to Servants”, published in his 1914 collection North of Boston.
The full public-domain text of the collection, confirming the wording, is available via Project Gutenberg.
Quote Investigator's research traces a near-identical phrase to an 1870 Harper's Weekly essay by George William Curtis, predating Frost's poem by 44 years.
Publication history confirms North of Boston was first published in 1914 by David Nutt in London, well before the 1931 public-domain cutoff.
✓Public domain
North of Boston was first published in 1914 in the U.K. (David Nutt) and 1915 in the U.S. (Henry Holt), decades before the 1931 cutoff for public-domain status in the United States, so this poem is in the public domain.
Fact-check
Often misattributed
The wording is genuinely Frost's, but the quote is almost always stripped of two things: it's a character's line inside a dramatic monologue, not Frost's own stated philosophy, and the underlying phrase predates Frost by decades.
✕
Context strippedLen, a character in the poem — not Frost's own narrating voice
In the poem, the farm wife reports her husband's saying — “He says the best way out is always through” — and answers it ambivalently (“I agree to that, or in so far...”), not as an unqualified motivational maxim in Frost's own voice.
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Earlier originator of the underlying phraseGeorge William Curtis 1870, Harper's Weekly
Quote Investigator traces a near-identical phrase, “the only way out is through, not back,” to Curtis's Harper's Weekly commentary on the Franco-Prussian War, published December 31, 1870 — 44 years before Frost's poem.
✓Frost really did write these words, but as a character's line inside a dramatic monologue, and the underlying sentiment was already in print decades earlier; per Quote Investigator, Frost is best credited as the phrase's most important popularizer rather than its originator.
Context
Where the line comes from
“A Servant to Servants” is one of Frost's longest dramatic monologues — roughly 177 lines of blank verse spoken by an overworked New England farm wife to a camper on her family's land at Lake Willoughby. Amid her account of endless domestic labor and a family history of mental illness, she reports her husband Len's practical philosophy: “He says the best way out is always through.”
The line has since traveled far from its source, printed on its own as an upbeat maxim. Inside the poem, though, it is someone else's certainty that the exhausted speaker can only half-accept — she adds, “I can see no way out but through.” Research from Quote Investigator suggests even Len's certainty wasn't new: a close forerunner appeared in print 44 years earlier, in an 1870 Harper's Weekly essay by George William Curtis.
He says the best way out is always through.
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1874–1963 · American poet, four-time Pulitzer Prize winner
Robert Frost was an American poet celebrated for realistic depictions of rural New England life rendered in plain, colloquial language. He won four Pulitzer Prizes for Poetry, and his second collection, North of Boston (1914), established his reputation on both sides of the Atlantic.
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Cite this
Primary source — Chicago
Frost, Robert. "A Servant to Servants." In North of Boston. London: David Nutt, 1914.
MLA (9th ed.)
Frost, Robert. “A Servant to Servants.” North of Boston, David Nutt, 1914.
APA (7th ed.)
Frost, R. (1914). A servant to servants. In North of Boston. David Nutt.
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Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘The best way out is always through’?” Last verified 8 Jul 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/the-best-way-out-is-always-through