Winter, the coldest of the seasons, has long been considered a time of hardship. Often marked with freezing temperatures, ice, and snow, it can be a time of year when food becomes scarce and staying warm becomes a matter of survival. In literature, winter has frequently been used as a literal or metaphorical example of adversity, be it Shakespeare’s “Now is the winter of our discontent,” or, more recently, George R.R. Martin's ominous warning, “Winter is coming.”
Yet wintertime certainly has its charms, and for some it’s the most glorious time of year. The first snow, the crisp air, the stars shining brightly in the sky. The holiday season, hot chocolate, nights spent huddled around an open fire. The reasons to embrace winter are numerous, as the following quotes attest. And even if you’re not a fan of the season, rest assured that it will pass eventually — as the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley wrote, “If Winter comes, can Spring be far behind?”
How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year!Thomas Wentworth Higginson, author and abolitionist
“Hear! hear!” screamed the jay from a neighboring tree, where I had heard a tittering for some time, “winter has a concentrated and nutty kernel if you know where to look for it.”Henry David Thoreau
I wonder if the snow loves the trees and fields, that it kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with a white quilt; and perhaps it says, “Go to sleep, darlings, till the summer comes again.”Lewis Carroll
Wisdom comes with winters.Oscar Wilde
In seed time learn, in harvest teach, in winter enjoy.William Blake
He who marvels at the beauty of the world in summer will find equal cause for wonder and admiration in winter… In winter the stars seem to have rekindled their fires, the moon achieves a fuller triumph, and the heavens wear a look of a more exalted simplicity.John Burroughs, naturalist and essayist
There is a privacy about [winter] which no other season gives you. In spring, summer, and fall people sort of have an open season on each other; only in the winter, in the country, can you have longer, quiet stretches when you can savour belonging to yourself.Ruth Stout, gardening expert and author
Winter is the time for comfort, for good food and warmth, for the touch of a friendly hand and for a talk beside the fire: it is the time for home.Edith Sitwell, poet
In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.Albert Camus
Never are voices so beautiful as on a winter's evening, when dusk almost hides the body, and they seem to issue from nothingness with a note of intimacy seldom heard by day.Virginia Woolf
What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness.John Steinbeck
I love the scents of winter! For me, it's all about the feeling you get when you smell pumpkin spice, cinnamon, nutmeg, gingerbread, and spruce.Taylor Swift
Fall gives us a premonition of winter, but then, winter, will be forced to relent, once again, to the new beginnings of soft greens, longer light, and the sweet air of spring.Madeleine M. Kunin, author and politician
Photo credit: dmf87/ iStock
