Our destiny often looks like a fruit-tree in winter. Who would think from its pitiable aspect that those rigid boughs, those rough twigs could next spring again be green, bloom, and even bear fruit? Yet we hope it, we know it. – Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Wilhelm Meister’s Travels, translated from German

The tendinous part of the mind, so to speak, is more developed in winter; the fleshy, in summer. I should say winter had given the bone and sinew to Literature, summer the tissues and blood. – John Burroughs, “The Snow-Walkers,” 1866

Spring, summer, and fall fill us with hope; winter alone reminds us of the human condition. – Mignon McLaughlin, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, 1966

How many lessons of faith and beauty we should lose, if there were no winter in our year! – Thomas Wentworth Higginson, “April Days,” 1861