Come, see the north-wind’s masonry, Out of an unseen quarry evermore Furnished with tile, the fierce artificer Curves his white bastions with projected roof Round every windward stake, or tree, or door. Speeding, the myriad-handed, his wild work So fanciful, so savage, naught cares he For number or proportion.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.
—A. E. Housman (1859–1936) English Poet, Classical Scholar
Have you seen but a bright lily grow,
Before rude hands have touched it?
Have you marked but the fall o’ the snow
Before the soil hath smutched it?
O so white! O so soft! O so sweet is she!
—Ben Jonson (1572–1637) English Dramatist, Poet, Actor
The larger a man’s roof, the more snow it collects.
—Common Proverb
I love snow, snow, and all the forms of radiant frost.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
THE SNOW had begun in the gloaming,
And busily all the night
Had been heaping field and highway
With a silence deep and white.
Every pine and fir and hemlock
Wore ermine too dear for an earl,
And the poorest twig on the elm-tree
Was ridged inch deep with pearl.
—James Russell Lowell (1819–91) American Poet, Critic
Corruption is like a ball of snow, once it’s set a rolling it must increase.
—Charles Caleb Colton (c.1780–1832) English Clergyman, Aphorist
And the might of the Gentile, unsmote by the sword,
Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
—Lord Byron (George Gordon Byron) (1788–1824) English Romantic Poet
There was a small boy of Quebec
Who was buried in snow to his neck
When they said, “Are you friz?”
He replied, “Yes, I is—
But we don’t call this cold in Quebec.”
—Rudyard Kipling (1865–1936) British Children’s Books Writer, Short story, Novelist, Poet, Journalist
When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.
—John Dryden (1631–1700) English Poet, Literary Critic, Playwright
In the bleak midwinter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak midwinter,
Long ago.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.
—Phyllis Diller (b.1917) American Actor, Comedian
Snowflakes are some of nature’s most fragile things, but just look what they can do when they all stick together.
—Unknown
Don’t complain about the snow on your neighbor’s roof when your own doorstep is unclean.
—Confucius (551–479 BCE) Chinese Philosopher
Announced by all the trumpets of the sky,
Arrives the snow, and, driving o’er the fields,
Seems nowhere to alight: the whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farmhouse at the garden’s end.
The sled and traveller stopped, the courier’s feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed In a tumultuous privacy of storm.
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.
—Carl Reiner (1922–2020) American Actor, Comedian, Film Director
Genius is an African who dreams up snow.
—Vladimir Nabokov (1899–1977) Russian-born American Novelist
Sunshine is delicious, rain is refreshing, wind braces up, snow is exhilarating; there is no such thing as bad weather, only different kinds of good weather.
—John Ruskin (1819–1900) English Writer, Art Critic
Out of the bosom of the Air, Out of the cloud-folds of her garments shaken, Over the woodlands brown and bare, Over the harvest-fields forsaken, Silent, and soft, and slow Descends the snow.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
These ‘messengers’ will not be hindered from accomplishing at their best speed the distance which they have to go, either by snow, or rain, or heat, or by the darkness of night.
—Herodotus (c.485–425 BCE) Ancient Greek Historian
Come, night; come, Romeo; come, thou day in night; For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night Whiter than new snow upon a raven’s back.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
Sunshine cannot bleach the snow, Nor time unmake what poets know
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–82) American Philosopher
From my experience, not one in twenty marries the first love; we build statues of snow, and weep to see them melt.
—Walter Scott (1771–1832) Scottish Novelist, Poet, Playwright, Lawyer
In the town of The Pas, Manitoba
It snows on the first of Octoba
From then, for six months,
It thaws only once
And never when I am quite soba.
—Anonymous
Money is only congealed snow.
—Dorothy Parker (1893–1967) American Humorist, Journalist
The Eskimo has fifty-two names for snow because it is important to them; there ought to be as many for love.
—Margaret Atwood (b.1939) Canadian Writer, Poet, Critic
Before you love, Learn to run through the snow Leaving no footprint
—Turkish Proverb
Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.
—Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889–1951) Austrian-born British Philosopher
Among twenty snowy mountains,
The only moving thing
Was the eye of the blackbird.
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
When I no longer thrill to the first snow of the season, I’ll know I’m growing old.
—Lady Bird Johnson (1912–2007) First Lady of the United States, Conservationist
This is the Hour of Lead—
Remembered, if outlived,
As Freezing persons, recollect the Snow—
First—Chill—then Stupor—then the letting go—.
—Emily Dickinson (1830–86) American Poet
The snow itself is lonely or, if you prefer, self-sufficient. There is no other time when the whole world seems composed of one thing and one thing only.
—Joseph Wood Krutch (1893–1970) American Writer, Critic, Naturalist
No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.
—Stanislaw Jerzy Lec (1909–1966) Polish Aphorist, Poet
Cold in the earth – and the deep snow piled above thee,
Far, far, removed, cold in the dreary grave!
—Emily Bronte (1818–48) English Novelist, Poet
Snow and adolescence are the only problems that disappear if you ignore them long enough.
—Earl Wilson (1907–87) American Broadway Gossip Columnist
Oh! the snow, the beautiful snow,
Filling the sky and earth below,
Over the housetops, over the street,
Over the heads of the people you meet.
Dancing,
Flirting,
Skimming along.
—Thomas J. Watson, Sr. (1874–1956) American Business Executive
The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?
—J. B. Priestley (1894–1984) English Novelist, Playwright, Critic
Snowmen fall from heaven… unassembled.
—Anonymous
Through the sharp air a flaky torrent flies, Mocks the slow sight, and hides the gloomy skies; The fleecy clouds their chilly bosoms bare, And shed their substance on the floating air.
—George Crabbe
One Christmas was so much like another,…that I can never remember whether it snowed for six days and six nights when I was twelve or whether it snowed for twelve days and twelve nights when I was six.
—Dylan Thomas (1914–53) Welsh Poet, Author