Quotes about seasons

A collection of quotes on the topic of weather, spring, winter, autumn.

Best quotes about seasons

Du Fu photo

“The good rain knows its season.”

Du Fu (712–770) Chinese poet of the Tang Dynasty

Source: Kim Cheng Boey, Between Stations: Essays (2009), p. 102
Context: Spring Night, Delighting in Rain (A translation by Burton Watson)

The good rain knows when to fall,
stirring new growth the moment spring arrives.

Wind-borne, it steals softly into the night,
nourishing, enriching, delicate, and soundless.

Country paths black as the clouds above them;
on a river boat a lone torch flares.

Come dawn we'll see a landscape moist and pink,
blossoms heavy over the City of Brocade.

José Martí photo

“A grain of poetry suffices to season a century.”

José Martí (1853–1895) Poet, writer, Cuban nationalist leader

Dedication of the Statue of Liberty (1887)
Source: Versos Sencillos: Simple Verses

Emma Donoghue photo

“Books are the air I breathe, so I don't notice the seasons.”

Emma Donoghue (1969) Irish novelist, playwright, short-story writer and historian
Frank Zappa photo

“I never claimed to be a man for all seasons.”

Frank Zappa (1940–1993) American musician, songwriter, composer, and record and film producer

Oui interview (1979)
Context: If a person wants to write music and lyrics, he has a perfect right to express his views on a certain subject. I would feel wrong if I were to express anything that I didn’t believe in. I write what I like to write. Those who like to listen to it, listen to it. And the ones who don’t, watch football and drink beer, jog, go to discos and so forth. I never claimed to be a man for all seasons.

Edna Ferber photo

“Christmas isn’t a season. It’s a feeling.”

Edna Ferber (1885–1968) Novelist, playwright

Variant: Christmas isn't a season. It's a feeling.

Jeffrey Eugenides photo

“Winter is the season of alcoholism and despair.”

Source: The Virgin Suicides

Sinclair Lewis photo

“Winter is not a season, it's an occupation.”

Sinclair Lewis (1885–1951) American novelist, short-story writer, and playwright
Ken Follett photo

“Hunger is the best seasoning.”

Source: The Pillars of the Earth

Harper Lee photo

“Autumn was her happiest season.”

Source: Go Set a Watchman

“These girls want nothing to do with last season's clothes.”

Source: The Clique

Quotes about seasons

Yuzuru Hanyu photo

“Well, I’m being portrayed as the challenger, but I’m always chasing after other skaters’ strengths, and I’m always seeking to challenge other skaters. So, I always see myself as a challenger, and nothing really has changed between this season’s World Championships and last season’s.”

Yuzuru Hanyu (1994) Japanese figure skater (1994-)

Annotation: Hanyu's being asked what difference it makes for him to go into the 2020 World Championships as a challenger after being the considered favorite for the title in recent years.
CBC interview with Scott Russell
Original: (ja) えっと、まあ、チャレンジャーっていうことを言われますけど、でもいつも他のスケーターの良いところを追いかけてるし、他のスケーターに対してチャレンジしたいなって思ってるし、だからいつも自分はチャレンジャーだと思っていて、だから今シーズンの世界選手権でも先シーズンの世界選手権でも何も変わらないかなって思います。

Osamu Dazai photo
Helena Bonham Carter photo
Paramahansa Yogananda photo
Susan B. Anthony photo
José Mourinho photo

“If FC Porto was a club of a country with another economical power, it could have done a striking season in Europe. That team was the best I have ever coached. It was destroyed due to economical factors.”

José Mourinho (1963) Portuguese association football player and manager

Chelsea FC, Doctorate Honoris Causa degree award (23 March 2009)

Tom Kenny photo
Socrates photo
Diogenes Laërtius photo
Matka Tereza photo

“Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand. Anyone may gather it and no limit is set. Everyone can reach this love through meditation, spirit of prayer, and sacrifice, by an intense inner life.”

Matka Tereza (1910–1997) Roman Catholic saint of Albanian origin

As quoted in Love, A Fruit Always In Season : Daily Meditations from the Words of Mother Teresa of Calcutta (1987) http://books.google.com/books?id=GqcnHzdPwPcC edited by Dorothy S. Hunt
1980s

Elvis Presley photo
Isaac Newton photo

“Christ comes as a thief in the night, & it is not for us to know the times & seasons which God hath put into his own breast.”

Isaac Newton (1643–1727) British physicist and mathematician and founder of modern classical physics

An Historical Account of Two Notable Corruptions of Scripture (1704), regarding his calculations "Of the End of the World" based upon the prophecies of Daniel, quoted in Look at the Moon! the Revelation Chronology (2007) by John A. Abrams, p. 141
Modern typographical and spelling variant:
This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fanciful men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, and by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail.
As quoted in "The world will end in 2060, according to Newton" in the London Evening Standard (19 June 2007) http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23401099-the-world-will-end-in-2060-according-to-newton.do
Context: The 2300 years do not end before the year 2132 nor after 2370.
The time times & half time do not end before 2060..... It may end later, but I see no reason for its ending sooner. This I mention not to assert when the time of the end shall be, but to put a stop to the rash conjectures of fancifull men who are frequently predicting the time of the end, & by doing so bring the sacred prophesies into discredit as often as their predictions fail. Christ comes as a thief in the night, & it is not for us to know the times & seasons which God hath put into his own breast.

Edna St. Vincent Millay photo

“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

Source: I know I am but summer to your heart (Sonnet XXVII)

Oscar Wilde photo
Oscar Wilde photo
Clarice Lispector photo
John Steinbeck photo
Friedrich Nietzsche photo

“I notice that Autumn is more the season of the soul than of nature.”

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900) German philosopher, poet, composer, cultural critic, and classical philologist
Molière photo

“It is a wonderful seasoning of all enjoyments to think of those we love.”

C'est un merveilleux assaisonnement aux plaisirs qu'on goûte que la présence des gens qu'on aime.
Act V, sc. iv
Le Misanthrope (1666)

C.G. Jung photo
Saul Bellow photo
Barack Obama photo
Michelle Trachtenberg photo

“Actually, I believe in the third season, one of the characters says, "Three hundred and something", which is the number of days from that point that I would appear on the show. Which is awesome.”

Michelle Trachtenberg (1985) American actress

BBC interview http://www.bbc.co.uk/cult/buffy/interviews/trachtenberg/printpage.html
Referring to Graduation Day and Restless

Mark Twain photo
Mark Twain photo
Emil M. Cioran photo
W.B. Yeats photo

“Come let us mock at the wise;
With all those calendars whereon
They fixed old aching eyes,
They never saw how seasons run,
And now but gape at the sun.”

V, st. 2
The Tower (1928), Nineteen Hundred And Nineteen http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1547/

Dhyan Chand photo
James Macpherson photo
Fernando Pessoa photo

“Let's be simple and calm,
Like the trees and streams,
And God will love us, making us
Us, even as the trees are trees
And the streams are streams,
And will give us greenness in the spring, which is its season,
And a river to go to when we end…
And he'll give us nothing more, since to give us more would make us less us.”

Fernando Pessoa (1888–1935) Portuguese poet, writer, literary critic, translator, publisher and philosopher

Sejamos simples e calmos,
Como os regatos e as árvores,
E Deus amar-nos-á fazendo de nós
Belos como as árvores e os regatos,
E dar-nos-á verdor na sua primavera,
E um rio aonde ir ter quando acabemos...
E não nos dará mais nada, porque dar-nos mais seria tirar-nos mais.
Alberto Caeiro (heteronym), O Guardador de Rebanhos ("The Keeper of Sheep"), VI — in A Little Larger Than the Entire Universe, trans. Richard Zenith (Penguin, 2006)

Plato photo

“And when the father who begat it perceived the created image of the eternal gods, that it had motion and life, he rejoiced and was well pleased; and he bethought him to make it yet more nearly like its pattern. Now whereas that is a living being eternally existent, even so he essayed to make this All the like to the best of his power. Now so it was that the nature of the ideal was eternal. But to bestow this attribute altogether upon a created thing was impossible; so he bethought him to make a moving image of eternity, and while he was ordering the universe he made of eternity that abides in unity an eternal image moving according to number, even that which we have named time. For whereas days and nights and months and years were not before the universe was created, he then devised the generation of them along with the fashioning of the universe. Now all these are portions of time, and was and shall be are forms of time that have come to be, although we wrongly ascribe them unawares to the eternal essence. For we say that it was and is and shall be, but in verity is alone belongs to it: and was and shall be it is meet should be applied only to Becoming which moves in time; for these are motions. But that which is ever changeless without motion must not become elder or younger in time, neither must it have become so in past nor be so in the future; nor has it to do with any attributes that Becoming attaches to the moving objects of sense: these have come into being as forms of time, which is the image of eternity and revolves according to number. Moreover we say that the become is the become, and the becoming is the becoming, and that which shall become is that which shall become, and not-being is not-being. In all this we speak incorrectly. But concerning these things the present were perchance not the right season to inquire particularly.”

Plato book Timaeus

38b, as quoted by R. D. Archer-Hind, The Timaeus of Plato (1888)
Timaeus

Marquis de Sade photo

“Our four libertines, half-drunk but nonetheless resolved to abide their laws, contented themselves with kisses, fingerings, but their libertine intelligence knew how to season these mild activities with all the refinements of debauch and lubricity.”

Nos quatre libertins, à moitié ivres, mais résolus pourtant d'observer leurs lois, se contentèrent de baisers, d'attouchements, mais que leur tête libertine sut assaisonner de tous les raffinements de la débauche et de la lubricité.
The First Day
The 120 Days of Sodom (1785)

Hu Jintao photo
Arthur Miller photo
Virginia Woolf photo
Socrates photo

“Socrates: Shall we set down astronomy among the objects of study? Glaucon: I think so, to know something about the seasons, the months and the years is of use for military purposes, as well as for agriculture and for navigation. Socrates: It amuses me to see how afraid you are, lest the common herd of people should accuse you of recommending useless studies.”

Socrates (-470–-399 BC) classical Greek Athenian philosopher

Socrates as quoted by Plato. In Richard Garnett, Léon Vallée, Alois Brandl (eds.), The Universal Anthology: A Collection of the Best Literature (1899), Vol. 4, 111.
Attributed

Benjamin Disraeli photo

“Bradlaugh makes the most noise, but the Irish Evictions Bill is much the most serious thing. … If the Eviction Act passes, there will not be many more seasons. It is a revolutionary age and the chances are, that even you and I may live to see the final extinction of the great London Season, which was the wonder and admiration of our youth.”

Benjamin Disraeli (1804–1881) British Conservative politician, writer, aristocrat and Prime Minister

Source: Letter to Lady Chesterfield (27 June 1880), quoted in the Marquis of Zetland (ed.), The Letters of Disraeli to Lady Bradford and Lady Chesterfield. Vol. II, 1876 to 1881 (London: Ernest Benn Limited, 1929), p. 279.

Abraham Lincoln photo
Nikola Tesla photo

“What has the future in store for this strange being, born of a breath, of perishable tissue, yet Immortal, with his powers fearful and Divine? What magic will be wrought by him in the end? What is to be his greatest deed, his crowning achievement?
Long ago he recognized that all perceptible matter comes from a primary substance, or a tenuity beyond conception, filling all space, the Akasha or luminiferous ether, which is acted upon by the life-giving Prana or Creative Force, calling into existence, in never ending cycles, all things and phenomena. The primary substance, thrown into infinitesimal whirls of prodigious velocity, becomes gross matter; the force subsiding, the motion ceases and matter disappears, reverting to the primary substance.
Can man control this grandest, most awe-inspiring of all processes in nature? Can he harness her inexhaustible energies to perform all their functions at his bidding? more still cause them to operate simply by the force of his will?
If he could do this, he would have powers almost unlimited and supernatural. At his command, with but a slight effort on his part, old worlds would disappear and new ones of his planning would spring into being. He could fix, solidify and preserve the ethereal shapes of his imagining, the fleeting visions of his dreams. He could express all the creations of his mind on any scale, in forms concrete and imperishable. He could alter the size of this planet, control its seasons, guide it along any path he might choose through the depths of the Universe. He could cause planets to collide and produce his suns and stars, his heat and light. He could originate and develop life in all its infinite forms.”

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) Serbian American inventor

Man's Greatest Achievement (1908; 1930)

John Locke photo
Iris DeMent photo
Z-Ro photo

“I let my temper get the best of me and I go off, for no reason,
Tis is the beginning of kicking in yo door season.”

Z-Ro (1977) American rapperdoj

Type of Nigga I Am.
Song lyrics, Cocaine (2009)

Zhuangzi photo
Reginald Heber photo
Kyrie Irving photo

“This season I've been on more of a plant-based diet, getting away from all the animals and all that. I had to get away from that. So my energy is up, my body feels amazing. Just understanding what the diet is like for me and what’s beneficial for me for having the highest energy out here and being able to sustain it at a very high level.”

Kyrie Irving (1992) American basketball player

Interview with ESPN’s Chauncey Billups; as quoted in "NBA players explain why they are going vegan and vegetarian" https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nba/nba-players-explain-why-they-are-going-vegan-and-vegetarian/ar-AAu21r4, MSN.com (October 25, 2017).

Samuel Pepys photo

“Music [is] a science peculiarly productive of a pleasure that no state of life, publick or private, secular or sacred; no difference of age or season; no temper of mind or condition of health exempt from present anguish; nor, lastly, distinction of quality, renders either improper, untimely, or unentertaining.”

Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) English naval administrator and member of parliament

Letter to the Master of University College, Oxford; published in J. R. Tanner (ed.) Private Correspondence and Miscellaneous Papers of Samuel Pepys, 1679-1703 (1926) p. 109. (1700)

Theodore Roosevelt photo

“We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America”

Theodore Roosevelt (1858–1919) American politician, 26th president of the United States

1910s, Address to the Knights of Columbus (1915)
Context: We cannot afford to continue to use hundreds of thousands of immigrants merely as industrial assets while they remain social outcasts and menaces any more than fifty years ago we could afford to keep the black man merely as an industrial asset and not as a human being. We cannot afford to build a big industrial plant and herd men and women about it without care for their welfare. We cannot afford to permit squalid overcrowding or the kind of living system which makes impossible the decencies and necessities of life. We cannot afford the low wage rates and the merely seasonal industries which mean the sacrifice of both individual and family life and morals to the industrial machinery. We cannot afford to leave American mines, munitions plants, and general resources in the hands of alien workmen, alien to America and even likely to be made hostile to America by machinations such as have recently been provided in the case of the two foreign embassies in Washington. We cannot afford to run the risk of having in time of war men working on our railways or working in our munition plants who would in the name of duty to their own foreign countries bring destruction to us. Recent events have shown us that incitements to sabotage and strikes are in the view of at least two of the great foreign powers of Europe within their definition of neutral practices. What would be done to us in the name of war if these things are done to us in the name of neutrality?

Henri Barbusse photo

“The truth is that the love of mankind is a single season among so many others. The truth is that we have within us something much more mortal than we are, and that it is this, all the same, which is all-important.”

Henri Barbusse (1873–1935) French novelist

Light (1919), Ch. XIX - Ghosts
Context: The truth is that the love of mankind is a single season among so many others. The truth is that we have within us something much more mortal than we are, and that it is this, all the same, which is all-important. Therefore we survive very much longer than we live. There are things we think we know and which yet are secrets. Do we really know what we believe? We believe in miracles. We make great efforts to struggle, to go mad. We should like to let all our good deserts be seen. We fancy that we are exceptions and that something supernatural is going to come along. But the quiet peace of the truth fixes us. The impossible becomes again the impossible. We are as silent as silence itself.

Robert Louis Stevenson photo

“The true wisdom is to be always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in changing circumstances.”

Robert Louis Stevenson (1850–1894) Scottish novelist, poet, essayist, and travel writer

Crabbed Age and Youth.
Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers (1881)
Context: The true wisdom is to be always seasonable, and to change with a good grace in changing circumstances. To love playthings well as a child, to lead an adventurous and honourable youth, and to settle when the time arrives, into a green and smiling age, is to be a good artist in life and deserve well of yourself and your neighbour.

W.B. Yeats photo

“This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season”

W.B. Yeats (1865–1939) Irish poet and playwright

The Arrow http://poetry.poetryx.com/poems/1590/
In The Seven Woods (1904)
Context: I thought of your beauty, and this arrow,
Made out of a wild thought, is in my marrow.
There's no man may look upon her, no man,
As when newly grown to be a woman,
Tall and noble but with face and bosom
Delicate in colour as apple blossom.
This beauty's kinder, yet for a reason
I could weep that the old is out of season.

John Locke photo

“And he who thinks that these two roots of almost all the injustice and contention that so disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduc'd, neglects the proper season to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man.”

Sec. 105
Some Thoughts Concerning Education (1693)
Context: Another thing wherein they shew their love of dominion, is, their desire to have things to be theirs: They would have propriety and possession, pleasing themselves with the power which that seems to give, and the right that they thereby have, to dispose of them as they please. He that has not observ's these two humours working very betimes in children, has taken little notice of their actions: And he who thinks that these two roots of almost all the injustice and contention that so disturb human life, are not early to be weeded out, and contrary habits introduc'd, neglects the proper season to lay the foundations of a good and worthy man.

Aurelius Augustinus photo

“But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt”

Aurelius Augustinus (354–430) early Christian theologian and philosopher

Exposition 2 of Psalm 108. The unity and perpetuity of the Church against the Donatists.
Expositions of the Psalms 99-120 (The Works of Saint Augustine, Vol 19 Part 3), Boniface Ramsey, ed., Maria Boulding, O.S.B, tr., New City Press, , pp. 68-69 http://books.google.com/books?id=3iWSkxuvyQ4C&pg=PA68&dq=%22So+say+people+who+are+not+within+the+Church.+What+an+impudent+assertion%22&hl=en&ei=-MlfTI7XKIHGlQeZ0JCZCA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CCUQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22So%20say%20people%20who%20are%20not%20within%20the%20Church.%20What%20an%20impudent%20assertion%22&f=false
Expositions on the Psalms
Context: God is one, and the Church is a unity; only unity can respond to him who is one. But there are some people why say, “Yes, that certainly was the case. The Church spread among all nations did respond to him, bearing more children than did the wedded wife. It responded to him in the way of his strength, for it believed that Christ had risen. All nations believed in him. But that Church which was drawn from all nations no longer exists: it has perished.”
So say people who are not within the Church. What an impudent assertion! The Church does not exist because you are not in it? Be careful lest such an attitude result in your not existing yourself, for the Church will be here even if you are not. But the Spirit of God anticipated this abominable, detestable assertion, this claim full of presumption and falsehood, a claim with nothing to support it, illumined by no spark of wisdom, seasoned by no salt. God’s Spirit anticipated this empty, unfounded, foolhardy and pernicious proposition and seemingly refuted it in advance by proclaiming that the Church is united by the gathering of the people together into one, and kingdoms to serve the Lord.

Roberto Clemente photo

“I never think about that before the season. Toward the end of the year I start thinking about it. Not before. I did it last year by just meeting the ball,”

Roberto Clemente (1934–1972) Puerto Rican baseball player

On his chances for a third consecutive NL batting title; as quoted and paraphrased in "Clemente Not Thinking of Batting Title" by Milton Richman, in The Cumberland Evening Times (Tuesday, March 15, 1966), p. 12
Baseball-related, <big><big>1960s</big></big>, <big>1966</big>
Context: “I never think about that before the season. Toward the end of the year I start thinking about it. Not before. I did it last year by just meeting the ball,” he said. “I didn’t swing hard at all. I think I’m going to do the same thing this year. We have two good hitters behind me now and I don’t have to swing so hard.” He means Donn Clendenon and Willie Stargell. The two hit a total of 41 homers to Clemente’s 10 last year. “They always say we need someone to hit home runs. We got some guys who can now. I don’t care for home runs. I showed ’em I could do it when I hit 23 in 1961. Home runs aren’t that important, though. Not to me, anyway.”

Barack Obama photo
Antonio Llidó photo
T.S. Eliot photo
Kanye West photo
James Baldwin photo

“To accept one's past - one's history - is not the same things as drowning in it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.”

Variant: To accept one’s past – one’s history – is not the same thing as drowning in it; it is learning how to use it. An invented past can never be used; it cracks and crumbles under the pressures of life like clay in a season of drought.
Source: The Fire Next Time

Alexander Hamilton photo
Graham Greene photo

“For some things there are no wrong seasons. Which is what I dream of for me.”

Mary Oliver (1935–2019) American writer

Source: A Thousand Mornings

Max Lucado photo
Robert Frost photo
Ray Bradbury photo
F. Scott Fitzgerald photo
Homér photo

“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity.
The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber
Burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning.
So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”

VI. 146–149 (tr. R. Lattimore); Glaucus to Diomed.
Alexander Pope's translation:
: Like leaves on trees the race of man is found,
Now green in youth, now withering on the ground:
Another race the following spring supplies,
They fall successive, and successive rise:
So generations in their course decay;
So flourish these, when those are past away.
Iliad (c. 750 BC)
Source: The Iliad

Anne Michaels photo
Brian Jacques photo
Janet Fitch photo
Ray Bradbury photo
Leonard Cohen photo

“If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.”

Leonard Cohen (1934–2016) Canadian poet and singer-songwriter

"Sisters of Mercy"
Songs of Leonard Cohen (1967)
Context: When they lay down beside me I made my confession to them.
They touched both my eyes and I touched the dew on their hem.
If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn,
They will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

Jane Austen photo
Philip Pullman photo
Stephen Chbosky photo
Jhumpa Lahiri photo
Calvin Coolidge photo
Harper Lee photo

“Summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.”

Variant: summer was our best season: it was sleeping on the back screeneed porch in cots, or trying to sleep in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parched landscape.
Source: To Kill a Mockingbird

Toni Morrison photo
Naomi Novik photo
Brian Jacques photo

“Step aside? I step aside for nobeast, whether it be a hallowed hedgehog, an officious otter, a seasoned squirrel, a mutterin' mole or a befuddled badger!”

Brian Jacques (1939–2011) British fiction writer known for Redwall animal fantasy novels

Source: Taggerung

Tanith Lee photo
George Santayana photo
Henry David Thoreau photo
P.G. Wodehouse photo
Zora Neale Hurston photo
Howard Pyle photo