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
My sorrow, when she’s here with me, thinks these dark days of autumn rain are beautiful as days can be; she loves the bare, the withered tree; she walks the sodden pasture lane.
—Robert Frost (1874–1963) American Poet
Many of the phenomena of Winter are suggestive of an inexpressible tenderness and fragile delicacy. We are accustomed to hear this king described as a rude and boisterous tyrant; but with the gentleness of a lover he adorns the tresses of Summer.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
I know I am but summer to your heart, and not the full four seasons of the year.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Ah, summer, what power you have to make us suffer and like it.
—Russell Baker (1925–2019) American Journalist, Humorist, Television Host
In a way winter is the real spring, the time when the inner things happen, the resurge of nature.
—Edna O’Brien (b.1932) Irish Novelist, Short-Story Writer
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.
—Henry James (1843–1916) American-born British Novelist, Writer
At Christmas I no more desire a rose Than wish a snow in May’s new-fangled mirth; But like of each thing that in season grows.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter has given the bone and sinew to literature, summer the tissues and blood.
—John Burroughs (1837–1921) American Naturalist, Writer
In the marvellous month of May
when all the buds were bursting,
then in my heart did
love arise.
In the marvellous month of May
when all the birds were singing,
then did I reveal to her
my yearning and longing.
—Heinrich Heine (1797–1856) German Poet, Writer
Like spring, but it is too young. I like summer, but it is too proud. So I like best of all autumn, because its tone is mellower, its colors are richer, and it is tinged with a little sorrow. Its golden richness speaks not of the innocence of spring, nor the power of summer, but of the mellowness and kindly wisdom of approaching age. It knows the limitations of life and its content.
—Lin Yutang (1895–1976) Chinese Author, Philologist
The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.
—Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852–1933) American Author, Educator, Clergyman
One cannot walk into an April day in a negative way. With spring, each man’s plans and hopes result in new efforts, fresh actions. All of which has a mighty important bearing on the economy. There are those of us who think that the psychology of man, each and together, has more impact on markets, business, services and building and all the fabric of an economy than all the more measurable statistical indices.
—Malcolm S. Forbes (1919–1990) American Publisher, Businessperson
In the depth of winter I finally learned there was inside me an invincible summer.
—Albert Camus (1913–60) Algerian-born French Philosopher, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist, Author
One swallow does not make a summer, but one skein of geese, cleaving the murk of March thaw, is the Spring.
—Aldo Leopold (1887–1948) American Ecologist, Conservationist
Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Live in each season as it passes; breathe the air, drink the drink, taste the fruit, and resign yourself to the influences of each. Let them be your only diet, drink, and botanical medicines.
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–62) American Philosopher
Spring is not the best of seasons. Cold and flu are two good reasons; wind and rain and other sorrow, warm today and cold tomorrow. Whoever said Spring was romantic? The word that best applies is frantic!
—Unknown
No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.
—John Donne (1572–1631) English Poet, Cleric
Only with winter-patience can we bring
The deep desired, long-awaited spring.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
The spring comes slowly up this way.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Indoors or out, no one relaxes
In March, that month of wind and taxes,
The wind will presently disappear,
The taxes last us all year.
—Ogden Nash (1902–71) American Writer of Sophisticated Light Verse
Magnificent autumn! He comes not like a pilgrim, clad in russet weeds; not like a hermit, clad in gray; but like a warrior with the stain of blood on his brazen mail.—His crimson scarf is rent; his scarlet banner dripping with gore; his step like a flail on the threshing floor.
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–82) American Poet, Educator, Academic
April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
Summer: The time of year that children slam the door they left open all winter.
—Anonymous
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
Summer has set in with its usual severity.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
Therefore all seasons shall be sweet to thee,
Whether the summer clothe the general earth
With greenness, or the redbreast sit and sing
Betwixt the tufts of snow on the bare branch
Of mossy apple tree.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772–1834) English Poet, Literary Critic, Philosopher
April is the cruelest month, breeding lilacs out of the dead land, mixing memory and desire, stirring dull roots with spring rain.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic