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About this quote

What does it mean?
The line contrasts a world that can let a bear feel free with a universe that feels cramped for us, highlighting differing scales of freedom.
In plain terms
Freedom feels different on small and large scales.
What can you take from it?
Find personal freedom even when the larger world feels limiting.

Where it applies

  • urban living
  • personal ambition

Putting it to work

  • focus on small joys
  • reframe constraints

Questions to consider

  • What makes you feel free?
  • How do you cope with feeling cramped?

Another view

The contrast may be too abstract for some.

More from Robert Frost

  1. Something inspires the only cow of late To make no more of a wall than an open gate, And think no more of wall-builders than fools.

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  2. The land may vary more; But wherever the truth may be - The water comes ashore, And the people look at the sea.

    Permalink to quote #80
  3. Our life runs down in sending up the clock. The brook runs down in sending up our life. The sun runs down in sending up the brook. And there is something sendi…

    Permalink to quote #77

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