O suns and skies and clouds of June, and flowers of June together. Ye cannot rival for one hour October’s bright blue weather.
—Helen Hunt Jackson (1830–85) American Novelist, Civil Rights Activist
Walk away quietly in any direction and taste the freedom on the mountains. Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. Nature’s peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The wind will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop off like autumn leaves.
—John Muir (1838–1914) Scottish-born American Naturalist
A wind has blown the rain away and blown the sky away and all the leaves away, and the trees stand. I think, I, too, have known autumn too long.
—e. e. cummings (1894–1962) American Poet, Writer, Painter
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.
—Washington Irving (1783–1859) American Essayist, Biographer, Historian
A moral character is attached to autumnal scenes. — The flowers fading like our hopes, the leaves falling like our years, the clouds fleeting like our illusions, the light diminishing like our intelligence, the sun growing colder like our affections, the rivers becoming frozen like our lives — all bear secret relations to our destinies.
—Francois-Rene de Chateaubriand (1768–1848) French Writer, Academician, Statesman
Autumn, in his leafless bowers, is waiting for the winter’s snow.
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–92) American Quaker Poet, Abolitionist