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
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
April comes like an idiot, babbling and strewing flowers.
—Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892–1950) American Poet, Playwright, Feminist
Summer: The time of year that children slam the door they left open all winter.
—Anonymous
January, month of empty pockets! Let us endure this evil month, anxious as a theatrical producer’s forehead.
—Colette (1873–1954) French Novelist, Performer
We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves; otherwise we harden.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749–1832) German Poet
Summer, with its dog days, its vacations, its distractions, is over. We have had our holidays, our rest, our recreation. The fall season, with its new opportunities for effort, enterprise and achievement, is upon us. Let us rip off our coats and get down to business. We may have allowed pessimism to grip us during the summer months. We may even have allowed laziness to enter our bones. Now it is up to us to throw off both lassitude and pessimism. The time has come for action, for aggressiveness. … .
—B. C. Forbes (1880–1954) Scottish-born American Journalist, Publisher
The year’s at the spring
And day’s at the morn;
Morning’s at seven;
The hillside’s dew-pearled;
The lark’s on the wing;
The snail’s on the thorn:
God’s in his heaven—
All’s right with the world!
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
Autumn wins you best by this, its mute appeal to sympathy for its decay.
—Robert Browning (1812–89) English Poet
April is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory out of desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in a forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
—T. S. Eliot (1888–1965) American-born British Poet, Dramatist, Literary Critic
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
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 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
True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment. It is a great virtue: it covers folly, keeps secrets, avoids disputes, and prevents sin.
—William Penn (1644–1718) American Entrepreneur, Political leader, Philosopher
Only with winter-patience can we bring
The deep desired, long-awaited spring.
—Anne Morrow Lindbergh (1906–2001) American Aviator, Author
January gray is here, like a sexton by her grave; February bears the bier, march with grief doth howl and rave, and April weeps—but, O ye hours! Follow with May’s fairest flowers.
—Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Poet, Dramatist, Essayist, Novelist
To be interested in the changing seasons is, in this middling zone, a happier state of mind than to be hopelessly in love with spring.
—George Santayana (1863–1952) Spanish-American Poet, Philosopher
Spring is when life’s alive in everything.
—Christina Rossetti (1830–94) English Poet, Hymn Writer
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
When a poet mentions the spring we know that the zephyrs are about to whisper, that the groves are to recover their verdure, the linnets to warble forth their notes of love, and the flocks and herds to frisk over vales painted with flowers.
—Samuel Johnson (1709–84) British Essayist
Poor, dear, silly Spring, preparing her annual surprise!
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955) American Poet
Youth is like spring, an over-praised season more remarkable for biting winds than genial breezes. Autumn is the mellower season, and what we lose in flowers we more than gain in fruits.
—Samuel Butler
If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant; if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.
—Anne Bradstreet (1612–72) American 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
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May.
—William Shakespeare (1564–1616) British Playwright
April prepares her green traffic light and the world thinks Go.
—Christopher Morley (1890–1957) American Novelist, Essayist
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
Nothing is so beautiful as spring—when weeds, in wheels, shoot long and lovely and lush; Thrush’s eggs look little low heavens, and thrush through the echoing timber does so rinse and wring the ear, it strikes like lightning to hear him sing.
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–89) British Jesuit Priest, Poet
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
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
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