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.
Robert FrostRead
The nearest friends can go With anyone to death, comes so far short They might as well not try to go at all.
Interpretation
What this quote means
True friendship means being with someone through thick and thin, but just being there isn't enough if you can't truly connect.
In this quote, Robert Frost reflects on the nature of friendship and lifeβs ultimate journey. He suggests that while friends may accompany each other through life's struggles, merely attempting to stand by one another, without a deep, meaningful connection, results in an empty gesture. Friendship is portrayed as requiring genuine understanding and commitment, without which the effort to be 'there' feels inadequate.
Themes
FriendshipSupportConnectionCommitmentLife Journey
In practice
Example use cases
During a speech about the importance of authentic friendships at a community gathering.
More from Robert Frost
All quotes βYou have freedom when you're easy in your harness.
Robert FrostRead
God made a beauteous garden With lovely flowers strown, But one straight, narrow pathway That was not overgrown. And to this beauteous garden He brought mankind to live, And said "To you, my children, These lovely flowers I give. Prune ye my vines and fig trees, With care my flowers tend, But keep the pathway open Your home is at the end." God's Garden
Robert FrostRead
'Warm in December, cold in June, you say?' _x000D_ _x000D_ I don't suppose the water's changed at all. _x000D_ _x000D_ You and I know enough to know it's warm _x000D_ _x000D_ Compared with cold, and cold compared with warm. _x000D_ _x000D_ But all the fun's in how you say a thing.
Robert FrostRead
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.
Robert FrostRead
The question that he frames in all but words is what to make of a diminished thing.
Robert FrostRead
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Friendship is so weird. You just pick a human you've met and you're like, 'Yep, I like this one,' and you just do stuff with them.
Bill MurrayRead
You should be nicer to him,' a schoolmate had once said to me of some awfully ill-favored boy. 'He has no friends.' This, I realized with a pang of pity that I can still remember, was only true as long as everybody agreed to it.
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When I was young I asked more of people than they could give: everlasting friendship, endless feeling. Now I know to ask less of them than they can give: a straightforward companionship. And their feelings, their friendship, their generous actions seem in my eyes to be wholly miraculous: a consequence of grace alone.
Albert CamusRead
Friendships are the family we make - not the one we inherit. I've always been someone to whom friendship, elective affinities, is as important as family.
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I still have friends from primary school. And my two best girlfriends are from secondary school. I don't have to explain anything to them. I don't have to apologize for anything. They know. There's no judgment in any way.
Emma WatsonRead