Quotes about autumn (244 quotes, page 3)

“The window opened gently and a still Autumn night entered cat-like. Edwin smelt freedom and London autumn – decay, smoke, cold, motor oil.”

Anthony Burgess (1917–1993) English writer

Fiction, The Doctor is Sick (1960)

Cats , Freedom , Night

“Don't be shy you learn to fly.
And see the sun when day is done.
If only you see
Just what you are beneath a star
That came to stay one rainy day
In autumn for free.
Yes, be what you'll be.”

Nick Drake (1948–1974) British singer-songwriter

Things Behind the Sun
Pink Moon (1972)

Star , Learning , Sun , Flying

“Alexandra drew her shawl closer about her and stood leaning against the frame of the mill, looking at the stars which glittered so keenly through the frosty autumn air. She always loved to watch them, to think of their vastness and distance, and of their ordered march. It fortified her to reflect upon the great operations of nature, and when she thought of the law that lay behind them, she felt a sense of personal security.”

Willa Cather book O Pioneers!

Part I, Ch. 5
O Pioneers! (1913)

Love , Law , Star , Nature

“a single leaf falling
autumn is everywhere…”

Frederick Franck (1909–2006) Dutch painter

Source: Echoes from the Bottomless Well (1985), p. 10

“The leaves in autumn do not change color from the blighting touch of frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit is ripened, and their work is done. And their splendid coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man. And one of the great lessons the fall of the leaf teaches is this : Do your work well, and then be ready to depart when God shall call.”

Tryon Edwards (1809–1894) American theologian

Source: A Dictionary of Thoughts, 1891, p. 33.

Life , God , Beauty , Color

“Through violence, you may 'solve' one problem, but you sow the seeds for another.
…
One has to try to develop one's inner feelings, which can be done simply by training one's mind. This is a priceless human asset and one you don't have to pay income tax on!
…
First one must change. I first watch myself, check myself, then expect changes from others.
…
Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them, humanity cannot survive.
…
I myself feel, and also tell other Buddhists that the question of Nirvana will come later.
There is not much hurry.
If in day to day life you lead a good life, honesty, with love,
with compassion, with less selfishness,
then automatically it will lead to Nirvana.
…
The universe that we inhabit and our shared perception of it are the results of a common karma. Likewise, the places that we will experience in future rebirths will be the outcome of the karma that we share with the other beings living there. The actions of each of us, human or nonhuman, have contributed to the world in which we live. We all have a common responsibility for our world and are connected with everything in it.
…
If the love within your mind is lost and you see other beings as enemies, then no matter how much knowledge or education or material comfort you have, only suffering and confusion will ensue.
…
It is under the greatest adversity that there exists the greatest potential for doing good, both for oneself and others.
…
Whenever Buddhism has taken root in a new land, there has been a certain variation in the style in which it is observed. The Buddha himself taught differently according to the place, the occasion and the situation of those who were listening to him.
…
Samsara - our conditioned existence in the perpetual cycle of habitual tendencies and nirvana - genuine freedom from such an existence- are nothing but different manifestations of a basic continuum. So this continuity of consciousness us always present. This is the meaning of tantra.
…
According to Buddhist practice, there are three stages or steps. The initial stage is to reduce attachment towards life.
The second stage is the elimination of desire and attachment to this samsara. Then in the third stage, self-cherishing is eliminated.
…
The creatures that inhabit this earth-be they human beings or animals-are here to contribute, each in its own particular way, to the beauty and prosperity of the world.
…
To develop genuine devotion, you must know the meaning of teachings. The main emphasis in Buddhism is to transform the mind, and this transformation depends upon meditation. in order to meditate correctly, you must have knowledge.
…
Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned.
…
The ultimate authority must always rest with the individual's own reason and critical analysis.
…
From one point of view we can say that we have human bodies and are practicing the Buddha's teachings and are thus much better than insects. But we can also say that insects are innocent and free from guile, where as we often lie and misrepresent ourselves in devious ways in order to achieve our ends or better ourselves. From this perspective, we are much worse than insects.
…
When the days become longer and there is more sunshine, the grass becomes fresh and, consequently, we feel very happy. On the other hand, in autumn, one leaf falls down and another leaf falls down. The beautiful plants become as if dead and we do not feel very happy. Why? I think it is because deep down our human nature likes construction, and does not like destruction. Naturally, every action which is destructive is against human nature. Constructiveness is the human way. Therefore, I think that in terms of basic human feeling, violence is not good. Non-violence is the only way.
…
We humans have existed in our present form for about a hundred thousand years. I believe that if during this time the human mind had been primarily controlled by anger and hatred, our overall population would have decreased. But today, despite all our wars, we find that the human population is greater than ever. This clearly indicates to me that love and compassion predominate in the world. And this is why unpleasant events are "news"; compassionate activities are so much a part of daily life that they are taken for granted and, therefore, largely ignored.
…
The fundamental philosophical principle of Buddhism is that all our suffering comes about as a result of an undisciplined mind, and this untamed mind itself comes about because of ignorance and negative emotions. For the Buddhist practitioner then, regardless of whether he or she follows the approach of the Fundamental Vehicle, Mahayana or Vajrayana, negative emotions are always the true enemy, a factor that has to be overcome and eliminated. And it is only by applying methods for training the mind that these negative emotions can be dispelled and eliminated. This is why in Buddhist writings and teachings we find such an extensive explanation of the mind and its different processes and functions. Since these negative emotions are states of mind, the method or technique for overcoming them must be developed from within. There is no alternative. They cannot be removed by some external technique, like a surgical operation."”

Tenzin Gyatso (1935) spiritual leader of Tibet

Dzogchen: The Heart Essence of the Great Perfection, Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca, 2004

Love , Life , War , Lie

“The windy lights of Autumn flare;
I watch the moonlit sails go by;
I marvel how men toil and fare,
The weary business that they play!
Their voyaging is vanity,
And fairy gold is all their gain,
And all the winds of winter cry,
“My Love returns no more again.””

Andrew Lang (1844–1912) Scots poet, novelist and literary critic

Ballade of Autumn

Love , Men , Business , Light

“The years seemed to stretch before her like the land: spring, summer, autumn, winter, spring; always the same patient fields, the patient little trees, the patient lives; always the same yearning; the same pulling at the chain — until the instinct to live had torn itself and bled and weakened for the last time, until the chain secured a dead woman, who might cautiously be released.”

Willa Cather book O Pioneers!

Part IV, Ch. 5
O Pioneers! (1913)

Spring , Tree , Winter , Time

“In the autumn of 1929 the mightiest of Americans were, for a brief time, revealed as human beings.”

John Kenneth Galbraith book The Great Crash, 1929

Source: The Great Crash, 1929 (1954 and 1997 https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25728842M/The_Great_Crash_1929), Chapter I, A Year To Remember, p. 5

Time

“to wound the autumnal city.
So howled out for the world to give him a name.
The in-dark answered with wind.”

Samuel R. Delany book Dhalgren

Part I, "Prism, Mirror, Lens" (p. 1)
Dhalgren (1975)

World

“The long sobs of
The violins
Of autumn
Lay waste my heart
With monotones
Of boredom.”

Paul Verlaine Chanson d'automne

Les sanglots longs
Des violons
De l'automne
Blessent mon cœur
D'une langueur
Monotone.
"Chanson d'automne", line 1, from Poèmes saturniens (1866); Sorrell p. 24

Heart

“Flowers are immortal. You cut them in autumn and they grow again in spring—somewhere.”

Halldór Laxness book The Atom Station

the organist
Atómstöðin (The Atom Station) (1948)

Flowers , Spring

“In course of time the slow advance of knowledge, which has dispelled so many cherished illusions, convinced at least the more thoughtful portion of mankind that the alterations of summer and winter, of spring and autumn, were not merely the result of their own magical rites, but that some deeper cause, some mightier power, was at work behind the shifting scenes of nature.”

James Frazer book The Golden Bough

Source: The Golden Bough (1890), Chapter 29, The Myth of Adonis.

Spring , Nature , Knowledge , Winter

“Tristam stood and raised his glass. “May life be kind, and friends loyal. Ventures profitable, children plentiful, and age like a slow turning of the leaves in autumn; grand, beautiful and tranquil.””

Sean Russell (1952) author

Source: Sea Without a Shore (1996), Chapter 40 (p. 583)

Life , Children , Age , Beauty

“He is no longer a city dweller who has even once in his life caught a ruff or seen how, on clear and cool autumn days, flocks of migrating thrushes drift over a village. Until his death he will be drawn to freedom.”

Anton Chekhov book Gooseberries

Gooseberries (1898)

Life , Death , Freedom

“This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929–1968) American clergyman, activist, and leader in the American Civil Rights Movement

1960s, I Have A Dream (1963)
Context: It would be fatal for the nation to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Negro's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating autumn of freedom and equality. Nineteen sixty-three is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Negro needed to blow off steam and will now be content will have a rude awakening if the nation returns to business as usual. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Negro is granted his citizenship rights.

Freedom , Summer

“With the ripening of the fruits in Autumn”

Vitruvius book De architectura

Source: De architectura (The Ten Books On Architecture) (~ 15BC), Book II, Chapter IX, Sec. 2
Context: With the ripening of the fruits in Autumn the leaves begin to wither and the trees, taking up their sap from the earth through the roots, recover themselves and are restored to their former solid texture. But the strong air of winter compresses and solidifies them.

“Autumn's the mellow time.”

William Allingham (1824–1889) Irish man of letters and poet

The Winter Pear; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).

Time

“The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past; there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen”

Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792–1822) English Romantic poet

St. 7
Hymn to Intellectual Beauty (1816)
Context: The day becomes more solemn and serene
When noon is past; there is a harmony
In autumn, and a lustre in its sky,
Which through the summer is not heard or seen,
As if it could not be, as if it had not been!
Thus let thy power, which like the truth
Of nature on my passive youth
Descended, to my onward life supply
Its calm, to one who worships thee,
And every form containing thee,
Whom, SPIRIT fair, thy spells did bind
To fear himself, and love all human kind.

Past , Summer

“The only effect which I know to have been produced by them, was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them in his solitude, and saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "here is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting their authorship; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our becoming personally acquainted.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Autobiography (1873)
Context: Mere newspaper articles on the occurrences or questions of the moment, gave no opportunity for the development of any general mode of thought; but I attempted, in the beginning of 1831, to embody in a series of articles, headed "The Spirit of the Age," some of my new opinions, and especially to point out in the character of the present age, the anomalies and evils characteristic of the transition from a system of opinions which had worn out, to another only in process of being formed. These articles were, I fancy, lumbering in style, and not lively or striking enough to be at any time, acceptable to newspaper readers; but had they been far more attractive, still, at that particular moment, when great political changes were impending, and engrossing all minds, these discussions were ill-timed, and missed fire altogether. The only effect which I know to have been produced by them, was that Carlyle, then living in a secluded part of Scotland, read them in his solitude, and saying to himself (as he afterwards told me) "here is a new Mystic," inquired on coming to London that autumn respecting their authorship; an inquiry which was the immediate cause of our becoming personally acquainted.

Solitude , Reading , Parting , Personality

“I am nobody:
A red sinking autumn sun
Took my name away.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Haiku: This Other World (1998)

Sun

“I love those skies, thin blue or snowy gray,
Those fields sparse-planted, rendering meagre sheaves;
That spring, briefer than apple-blossom’s breath,
Summer, so much too beautiful to stay,
Swift autumn, like a bonfire of leaves,
And sleepy winter, like the sleep of death.”

Elinor Wylie book Nets to Catch the Wind

4
Nets to Catch the Wind (1921), Wild Peaches

Love , Death , Beauty , Spring

“A French critic cleverly wrote that "with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman." It is witty but unfortunate. For me, that is.”

Ingmar Bergman (1918–2007) Swedish filmmaker

Images : My Life in Films (1990)
Context: A French critic cleverly wrote that "with Autumn Sonata Bergman does Bergman." It is witty but unfortunate. For me, that is. I think it is only too true that Bergman (Ingmar, that is) did a Bergman... I love and admire the filmmaker Tarkovsky and believe him to be one of the greatest of all time. My admiration for Fellini is limitless. But I also feel that Tarkovsky began to make Tarkovsky films and that Fellini began to make Fellini films. Yet Kurosawa has never made a Kurosawa film. I have never been able to appreciate Buñuel. He discovered at an early stage that it is possible to fabricate ingenious tricks, which he elevated to a special kind of genius, particular to Buñuel, and then he repeated and varied his tricks. He always received applause. Buñuel nearly always made Buñuel films.

“Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.”

Alfred, Lord Tennyson Tears, Idle Tears

St. 1
Tears, Idle Tears (1850)

Thinking , Tear , Heart , Despair

“O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes”

Percy Bysshe Shelley book Ode to the West Wind

St. I
Ode to the West Wind (1819)
Context: O wild West Wind, thou breath of Autumn's being,
Thou, from whose unseen presence the leaves dead
Are driven, like ghosts from an enchanter fleeing,
Yellow, and black, and pale, and hectic red,
Pestilence-stricken multitudes: O thou,
Who chariotest to their dark wintry bed
The winged seeds, where they lie cold and low,
Each like a corpse within its grave, until
Thine azure sister of the spring shall blow
Her clarion o'er the dreaming earth.

Dead

“Who brought this to pass?
Who has brought the flaming imperial anger?
Who has brought the army with drums and with kettle-drums?
Barbarous kings.
A gracious spring, turned to blood-ravenous autumn,
A turmoil of wars-men, spread over the middle kingdom,
Three hundred and sixty thousand,
And sorrow, sorrow like rain.”

Ezra Pound (1885–1972) American Imagist poet and critic

'Lament of the Frontier Guard' (From Cathay, 1915)

Men , War , Spring , Anger

“Whereas "false stories" can be told anywhere and at any time, myths must not be recited except during a period of sacred time (usually in autumn or winter, and only at night)”

Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer and philosopher

Myth and Reality (1963)
Context: Whereas "false stories" can be told anywhere and at any time, myths must not be recited except during a period of sacred time (usually in autumn or winter, and only at night).... This custom has survived even among peoples who have passed beyond the archaic stage of culture. Among the Turco-Mongols and the Tibetans the epic songs of the Gesar cycle can be recited only at night and in winter.

Winter , Time , Falseness , Night

“Burning autumn leaves,
I yearn to make the bonfire
Bigger and bigger.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Haiku: This Other World (1998)

“A slow autumn rain:
The sad eyes of my mother
Fill a lonely night.”

Richard Wright (1908–1960) African-American writer

Haiku: This Other World (1998)

Sadness , Night

“1916
Let us lift the fallen!
Because who else – who else than we
would summon them like autumn leafs
when time will shake the bells of our dreams
a “Foggy dew”

And once the time runs out
for everything and nothing at all
with a triumphant song on our lips
we shall wage war on the entire world!”

Marcin Malek (1975) Polish writer

Among the things (2012), Page 38, verse V, VI.

War , World , Dreams , Time

“Sometimes I ask myself how autumn smells? My answer: it's the smell of the autumn leaves firework and red wine.”

Брайанна Рид

Wine

“Get up and bring fur clothes as Autumn is here
A cold wind is blowing from the Khawrazm yonder
Look at that vine leaf hanging on the vine bough
It looks like the shirt of dyers
The farmer is biting his finger with wonder
As in the lawn or garden is left no more rose or lavender”

Manuchehri (1000–1040) Persian poet

Clothes

“The whites have driven us from the sea to the lakes. We can go no further... unless every tribe unanimously combines to give a check to the ambition and avarice of the whites they will soon conquer us apart and disunited and we will be driven from our native country and scattered as autumn leaves before the wind.”

Tecumseh (1768–1813) Native American leader of the Shawnee

Quoted in Seeking a Nation Within a Nation, CBC Canada https://www.cbc.ca/history/EPCONTENTSE1EP5CH12LE.html

Sea , Country

“When in my residence in Carolina and Florida, I have seen vast flights of the house swallow (hirundo pelasgia) and bank martin (hirundo riparia) passing onward northward toward Pennsylvania, where they breed in the spring, about the middle of March, and likewise in the autumn in September or October, and large flights on their return southward. And it is observable that they always avail themselves of the advantage of high and favouralbe winds, which likewise do all birds of passage.”

William Bartram (1739–1823) American naturalist

[The travels of William Bartram, An American Bookshelf, volume 3, 236, https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.$b281934&view=1up&seq=242]
Travels of William Bartram (1791)

Housing , Bird , Spring

“All flesh is one: what matter scores;
Or color of the suit
Or if the helmet glints with blue or gold?
All is one bold achievement,
All is fine spring-found-again-in-autumn day
When juices run in antelopes along our blood, And green our flag, forever green…”

Ray Bradbury (1920–2012) American writer

"All flesh is one: what matter scores?" in When Elephants Last In The Dooryard Bloomed : Celebrations For Almost Any Day In The Year (1973)

Color , Spring

“We are the Roots of the tree on which you flourish. Go on rejoicing in your beauty! But remember there is this difference between us that with every autumn the old Leaves die, and with every spring new Leaves are born; but if the Roots once perish neither you nor the tree can live at all.”

Ivan Krylov (1769–1844) Russian writer

An argosy of fables, "The Leaves and the Roots" p. 398
The Fables (1883)

Beauty , Spring , Tree

“At some point, the Mod look had a short-lived Country Life moment, when the gorgeous mohair sheen of the three-button suit gave way to matte autumnal earth tones. Give it a name: fucking brown.”

John Cooper Clarke (1951) English performance poet

Source: I Wanna Be Yours (2020), p. 114.

Way , Life , Country

“Love, then unstinted, Love did sip,
And cherries plucked fresh from the lip;
On cheeks and roses free he fed;
Lasses like autumn plums did drop,
And lads indifferently did crop
A flower and a maidenhead.”

Richard Lovelace (1617–1658) English writer and poet

Love Made in the First Age: To Chloris (l. 13–18).

Indifference , Flowers , Love

“The desert sands look white as snow;
The crescent moon hangs like a bow.
When would the steed in golden gear
Gallop all night through autumn clear?”

Li He (790–816) Chinese writer

"Twenty-three Horse Poems", 5 (《马诗二十三首（其五）》), in Song of the Immortals: An Anthology of Classical Chinese Poetry, trans. Xu Yuanchong (Penguin Books, 1994), p. 91
Original: (zh-CN) 大漠沙如雪，燕山月似钩。
何当金络脑，快走踏清秋。

Night

“The autumn sun shone brightly. It was still the same sun and the same clouds. The sun didn’t care about the landscape inside people’s heads.”

Bruce Sterling book Islands in the Net

Source: Islands in the Net (1988), Chapter 1 (p. 16)

Sun , People

“Ever more alone, ever madder, remoter, sadder alone,
ever darker, ever baser, as it awfuls more and more.Ever colder, ever viler, ever icier,
autumn's lonely void, as it autumns more and more.”

Miroslav Krleža (1893–1981) Croatian writer

Jesenja samoća (Autumn Loneliness), in: Poezija, p.343 (Zora, 1963)
Poetry

“O autumn winds that bake and burn
And all the world to darkness turn,
Now storm and seize and make of me…
A swarm of leaves from Autumn’s Tree!”

Ray Bradbury book The Halloween Tree

Source: The Halloween Tree (1972), Chapter 11 (p. 79)

Tree , World

“Father has his arm around Tereze.
She squints. My thumb
is in my mouth: my fifth autumn.
Near the copper beech
the spaniel dozes in shadows.
Not one of us does not avert his eyes.”

Louise Glück (1943–2023) American poet

Source: "Still Life", The House on Marshland (1975)

“We are well-prepared for this summer and autumn. And in view of the mood among our fighters, I can tell you that the situation will undergo a radical change. After the referendum, the activities of the resistance units sharply increased.”

Aslan Maskhadov (1951–2005) Chechen warlord

"Chechnya: Maskhadov speaks out on peace talks, resistance and recent explosions" in Relief Web https://reliefweb.int/report/russian-federation/chechnya-maskhadov-speaks-out-peace-talks-resistance-and-recent-explosions (2 June 2003)

Mood , Change , Summer

Quotes about autumn page 3

Quotes about autumn
page 3