"Always fall in with what you're asked to accept. Take what is given, and make it over your way. My aim in life has always been to hold my own with whatever's going. Not against: with"
About this Quote
Frost fuses acceptance with agency. The counsel to fall in with what you are asked to accept sounds like submission at first, but the turn comes immediately: take what is given, and make it over your way. The posture is neither passive nor defiant. It is a craftsman’s stance toward materials and circumstances, a willingness to work with the grain rather than against it while leaving unmistakable marks of the maker’s hand.
That last emphasis, Not against: with, distills a broader Frostian philosophy grounded in New England pragmatism. Life offers constraints, seasons, and social expectations; the game already has a field and a net. But there is artistry in how one plays. Frost famously defended meter as playing tennis with the net up, a perfect parallel to this sentiment: accepting form does not stifle freedom; it focuses it. Within rules he found the space to bend speech, stretch idiom, and make tradition sing in his own accent.
The idea threads through the poems. In Mending Wall, he doubts the wisdom of divisions yet joins the neighbor in the annual ritual, turning conformity into inquiry. In Birches, the trees bend but do not break, finding resilience in yielding. Even the often-misread The Road Not Taken toys with the romance of rebellion while admitting both paths were about the same; choice becomes a matter of how one narrates and inhabits what chance or habit presents.
Contextually, Frost voiced this outlook in late-life interviews as part of his public self-portrait: a poet who faced hard weather, literal and figurative, by keeping company with it. He prized the strength that comes from working alongside forces larger than oneself rather than squandering energy in futile opposition. The ethic is quietly radical. Transform what you cannot change. Make companionship with difficulty. Hold your own, not by resisting the world at every turn, but by traveling with it until its givens become your art.
That last emphasis, Not against: with, distills a broader Frostian philosophy grounded in New England pragmatism. Life offers constraints, seasons, and social expectations; the game already has a field and a net. But there is artistry in how one plays. Frost famously defended meter as playing tennis with the net up, a perfect parallel to this sentiment: accepting form does not stifle freedom; it focuses it. Within rules he found the space to bend speech, stretch idiom, and make tradition sing in his own accent.
The idea threads through the poems. In Mending Wall, he doubts the wisdom of divisions yet joins the neighbor in the annual ritual, turning conformity into inquiry. In Birches, the trees bend but do not break, finding resilience in yielding. Even the often-misread The Road Not Taken toys with the romance of rebellion while admitting both paths were about the same; choice becomes a matter of how one narrates and inhabits what chance or habit presents.
Contextually, Frost voiced this outlook in late-life interviews as part of his public self-portrait: a poet who faced hard weather, literal and figurative, by keeping company with it. He prized the strength that comes from working alongside forces larger than oneself rather than squandering energy in futile opposition. The ethic is quietly radical. Transform what you cannot change. Make companionship with difficulty. Hold your own, not by resisting the world at every turn, but by traveling with it until its givens become your art.
Quote Details
| Topic | Embrace Change |
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