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winter quotes

  • I have often thought, says Sir Roger, it happens very well that Christmas should fall out in the Middle of Winter.

    -Joseph Addison
      In The Spectator, no.269, 8  Jan.

  • It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it, at this time of the year; just, the worst time of the year, to take a journey, and specially a long journey, in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off in solstitio brumali, the very dead of winter. See Eliot 306:73.

    - Lancelot Andrewes
      Of the Nativity, sermon15.

  • And nowe in the winter, when men kill the fat swine They get the bladder and blow it great and thin, With many beans and peason put within: It ratleth, soundeth, and shineth clere and fayre While it is throwen and caste up in the ayre, Each one contendeth and hath a great delite With foote and with hands the bladder for to smite; If it fall to grounde, they lifte it up agayne, But this waye to labour they count in no payne.

    -Anonymous
    Medieval verse, one of the earliest descriptions of football in England.

  •    My Love in her attire doth show her wit, It doth so well become her; For every season she hath dressings fit, For winter, spring, and summer. No beauty she doth miss When all her robes are on; But beauty's self she is When all her robes are gone.

    -Anonymous
    'Madrigal'. Collected in F Davison (ed) Poetical Rhapsody (1602).

  • Talis, inquiens, mihi videtur, rex, vita hominum praesens in terris, ad comparationem eius, quod nobis incertum est, temporis, quale cum te residente, ad caenam cum ducibus ac ministris tuis tempore brumale†adveniens unus passerum domum citissime, pervolaverit; qui cum per unum ostium ingrediens, mox per aliud exierit. Ipso quidem tempore, quo intus est, hiemis tempestate non tangitur, sed tamen parvissimo spatio serenitatis ad momentum excurso, mox de hieme in hiemem regrediens, tuis oculis elabitur. Ita haec vita hominum ad modicum apparet; quid autem sequatur, quidve praecesserit, prorsus ignoramus. 'Such,' he said,'O King, seems to me the present life of menon earth, incomparisonwiththattimewhichtousis uncertain, as if when on a winter's night you sit feasting with your ealdormen and thegnsa single sparrow should flyswiftly intothehall, and coming inat one door, instantly flyoutthrough another.Inthattime inwhichit is indoorsit isindeed nottouched by thefuryofthewinter, and yet, this smallest space of calmness being passed almost in a flash, from winter going into winter again, it is lost to your eyes. Somewhat like this appears the life of man; but of what follows or what went before, we are utterly ignorant.'

    -Bede known as  'theVenerable'
    Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis  Anglorum (Ecclesiastical History of the English People, translated byB Colgrave,1969), bk.2, ch.13.

  • My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fairone, and come away.For lo, thewinter ispast, the rain is over and gone.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Song of Solomon 2:10^11.

  • O Winter! bar thine adamantine doors. The north is thinethere hast thou built thy dark Deep-founded habitation. Shake not thy roofs, Nor bend thy pillars with thine iron car.

    -William Blake
      Poetical Sketches,'To Winter'.

  • The winter wind is loud and wild, Come close to me, my darling child; Forsake thy books, and mateless play; And, while the night isgathering grey, We'll talk its pensive hours away. Brooke

    - EmilyJane Bronte« 
      'Faith and Despondency', in Poems by Currer, Ellis and Acton Bell.

  • My love for Linton is like the foliage in the woods. Time will changeit,I'mwellaware, aswinterchangesthetrees. My Love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneatha source of little visible delight but necessary. Nelly, I am Heathcliff.

    - EmilyJane Bronte« 
      Wuthering Heights, ch.9.

  • Winter lies too long in country towns; hangs on until it is stale and shabby, old and sullen.

    -Willa Sibert Cather
      My  Antonia, bk.2, ch.7.

  • While Spring shall pour his showers, as oft he wont, And bathe thy breathing tresses, meekest Eve! While Summer loves to sport Beneath thy lingering light; While sallow Autumn fills thy lap with leaves, Or Winter, yelling through the troublous air, Affrights thy shrinking train, And rudely rends thy robes.

    -William Collins
      Odes on Several Descriptive and  Allegoric Subjects,'Ode to Evening', l.41^8.

  • Our severest winter, commonly called the spring.

    -William Cowper
      Letter to Rev William Unwin, 8  Jun.

  • Wellcome, all Wonders in one sight! Eternity shut in a span. Summer in Winter, Day in Night. Heaven in Earth and God in Man.

    - Richard Crashaw
      'Hymn of the Nativity' (published1652), l.79.

  • He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he canbring thysummerout of winter, though thou have no spring† God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noontoillustrateall shadows,asthesheavesinharvestto fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

    -John Donne
      Sermons,'Christmas Day,1624'.

  • Here lies, bowl'd out by Death's unerring ball, A cricketer renowned, by name John Small; But though his name was small, yet great was his fame, For nobly did he play the'noble game'. His life was like his inningslong and good; Full ninety summers had Death withstood, At length the ninetieth winter camewhen (Fate Not leaving him one solitary mate) This last of Hambledonians, old John Small, Gave up his bat and ballhis leather, wax and all.

    - Pierce Egan
      Epitaph on cricketer  John Small. Pierce Egan's Book of Sports.

  • The winter evening settles down With smell of steaks in passageways Six o'clock. The burnt-out ends of smoky days.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      Prufrock and Other Observations,'Preludes', pt.1.

  • A cold coming we had of it, Just the worst time of the year For a journey, and such a long journey: The ways deep and the weather sharp, The very dead of winter.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      'The  Journey of the Magi'.

  • Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God as can be your own.

    -W(illiam) E(wart) Gladstone
      Speech at Edinburgh Foresters'Hall, during the Midlothian Campaign, 26 Nov.

  • Twice a week the winter through Here I stood to keep the goal: Football then was fighting sorrow For the young man's soul.

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      A Shropshire Lad, no.21.

  • Lourd on my hert as winter lies The state that Scotland's in the day. Spring to the North has aye come slow But noo dour winter's like to stay For guid, And no'for guid!

    -Grieve
      To Circumjack Cencrastus, or The Curly Snake.

  • Thus in the winter stands the lonely tree, Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one, Yet knows its boughs more silent than before

    - Edna St Vincent Millay
      Harp-Weaver and Other Poems,'Sonnet19:  What lips my lips have kissed'.

  • It was the winter wild While the Heaven born child All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him Had doffed her gaudy trim With her great Master so to sympathize; It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

    -John Milton
      'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity','The Hymn', stanza 3.

  • People live within winter in a way outsiders do not understand. Theyare watchful, provident, fatigued, exhilarated.

    - Alice ne  e Laidlaw Munro
      The Progress of Love,'Fits'.

  •    All winter long, I am one for whom the bell is tolling; I can arouse no interest in basketball, Indoor fly casting or bowling; The sports pages are strictly no soap! And until the cry Play Ball! I simply mope.

    - (Frederic) Ogden Nash
      Quoted in Colin  Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • From winter, plague and pestilence, good lord, deliver us!

    -Thomas Nashe
      Summer's Last Will and Testament.

  • Winter is for women The woman still at her knitting, At the cradle of Spanish walnut, Her body a bulb in the cold and too dumb to think.

    - Sylvia Plath
      'Wintering', published posthumously byTed Hughes (Ariel, 1965).

  • Two evils, monstrous either one apart, Possessed me, and were long and loath at going: A cry of Absence, Absence, in the heart, And in the wood the furious winter blowing.

    -John Crowe Ransom
      Chills and Fever,'Winter Remembered'.

  • When Winter scourged the meadow and the hill And in the withered leafage worked his will, Then water shrank, and shuddered, and stood still, Then built himself a magic house of glass, Irised with memories of flowers and grass, Wherein to sit and watch the fury pass.

    - Sir Charles George Douglas Roberts
      'Ice'.

  • An age in her embraces passed, Would seem a winter's day; Where life and light, with envious haste, Are torn and snatched away. But, oh how slowly minutes roll, When absent from her eyes That feed my love, which is my soul, It languishes and dies.

    -JohnWilmot, 2nd Earl of Rochester
    'The Mistress', l.1^8 (published1691).

  • In the bleak mid-winter 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 mid-winter, Long ago.

    - Christina Georgina Rossetti
      'Mid-Winter'.

  • It's a family jokethat when Iwas a tinychild Iturned from the window out of which I was watching a snowstorm, and hopefullyasked,'Momma, do we believe in winter?'

    - Philip Milton Roth
      Portnoy's Complaint,'The Most Unforgettable Character I've Ever Met'.

  • Forget not bees in winter, though they sleep, For winter's big with summer in her womb.

    -Vita (Victoria Mary) Sackville-West
      The Land,'Spring'.

  • And, by the incarnation of this verse, Scatter, as from an unextinguished hearth Ashes and sparks, my words among mankind! Be through my lips to unawakened earth The trumpet of a prophecy! O,Wind, If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Ode to theWestWind', l.65^70.

  • The cemetery is an open space among the ruins, covered in winter with violets and daisies. It might make one in love with death, to think that one should be buried in so sweet a place.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Adonais, preface.

  • Ah, woe is me! Winter is come and gone, But grief returns with the revolving year.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
    Adonais, stanza18.

  • The world's great age begins anew, The golden years return, The earth doth like a snake renew Her winter weeds outworn; Heaven smiles, and faiths and empires gleam, Like wrecks of a dissolving dream.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Hellas', l.1060^5.

  • I dreamed that, as I wandered by the way, Bare Winter suddenly was changed to Spring, And gentle odours led my steps astray, Mixed with a sound of water's murmuring Along a shelving bankof turf, which lay Under a copse, and hardly dared to fling Its green arms round the bosom of the stream, But kissed it and then fled, as thou mightst in dream.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'The Question', stanza1.

  • You see how when rivers are swollen in winter those trees that yield to the flood retain their branches, but those that offer resistance perish, trunk and all.

    -Sophocles
    Haemon speaking. Antigone,712^14 (translated by H Lloyd- Jones,1994).

  •   In winter I get up at night And dress by yellow candle-light. In summer, quite the other way, I have to go to bed by day. I have to go to bed and see The birds still hopping on the tree, Or hear the grown-up people's feet Still going past me in the street.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      A Child's Garden ofVerses, no.1,'Bed in Summer', stanzas1^2.

  • For winter's rains and ruins are over, And all the season of snows and sins; The days dividing lover and lover, The light that loses, the night that wins; And time remembered isgrief forgotten, And frosts are slain and flowers begotten, And in green underwood and cover Blossom by blossom the spring begins.

    - Algernon Charles Swinburne
      Atlanta in Calydon, chorus,'When the hounds of spring'.

  • A Child will make two Dishes at an Entertainment for Friends; and when the Family dines alone, the fore or hind Quarter will makea reasonable Dish; and seasoned with a little Pepper or Salt, will be very good Boiled on the fourth Day, especially in Winter.

    -Jonathan Swift
      A Modest Proposal for Preventing the Children of Ireland from being a Burden to their Parents or Country.

  • Behold, we know not anything; I can but trust that good shall fall At lastfar offat last, to all, And every winter change to spring. So runs my dream: but what am I? An infant crying in the night: An infant crying for the light: And with no language but a cry.

    -Tennyson
      In Memoriam A.H.H., canto 54, l.13^20.

  • Let no man boast himself that he has got through the perils of winter till at least the seventh of May.

    - Anthony Trollope
      DoctorThorne, ch.47.

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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