Vol. 06 · Misquoted ·Book ·103 of 348
"Good fences make good neighbours. — Robert Frost"
They never said that.
What people say
"Good fences make good neighbours. — Robert Frost"
What was actually said
Good fences make good neighbours. — quoted approvingly. Frost's speaker actually disputes the line. Robert Frost — "Mending Wall" (1914)
Why it stuck
Frost's narrator calls the saying his neighbour's "father's saying" and repeats it "in the darkness of old" — the poem is critiquing it. The aphorism survives the critique intact.
Know another line by heart?
Play the duel and see how many you can spot. Or browse the whole shelf.