21 Winter Solstice Quotes To Celebrate The First Day Of Winter

It's finally here — the first day of winter. And, while your mind might be immediately filled with visions of dry skin, iced-over windshields, and treacherously slushy walks to work, have no fear! These winter solstice quotes are more than enough to remind you of some of the beauty of winter.

I live in Wisconsin, where it can often feel like the winter lasts for six months out of the year. So, you think I'd be conditioned to love (or at least tolerate) winter by now. And, although I will admit to loving the holidays and the occasional fresh blanket of snow, I'd be totally fine if the weather turned a little more mild as soon as the ball dropped on New Year's Eve.

But, unfortunately, that's not the way things work. Instead, I'm forced to bundle up and hunker down for another few months (which, honestly, feels like years) of a snowy and bitterly cold winter. It's not exactly something I look forward to — but I've learned to make the best of it.

So, what better way to kickstart the season than with a bunch of fitting quotes about winter? I've pulled together 21 winter quotes to make the season's arrival feel a little more bearable. Grab a blanket and a mug of cocoa (or a glass of wine), and remind yourself of a few of the good things that come along with the season. Because, yes, they do exist.

1. "The winter solstice has always been special to me as a barren darkness that gives birth to a verdant future beyond imagination, a time of pain and withdrawal that produces something joyfully inconceivable, like a monarch butterfly masterfully extracting itself from the confines of its cocoon, bursting forth into unexpected glory." — Gary Zukav

2. "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 a home." — Edith Sitwell

3. "Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake." — Sara Raasch

4. "If winter comes, can spring be far behind?" — Percy Bysshe Shelley

5. "The first fall of snow is not only an event, it is a magical event. You go to bed in one kind of a world and wake up in another quite different, and if this is not enchantment then where is it to be found?" — J.B. Priestley

6. "Winter is not a season, it's an occupation." — Sinclair Lewis

7. "Even in winter an isolated patch of snow has a special quality." — Andy Goldsworthy

8. "What good is the warmth of summer, without the cold of winter to give it sweetness." — John Steinbeck

9. "We build statues out of snow, and weep to see them melt." — Walter Scott

10. "Let us love winter, for it is the spring of genius." — Pietro Aretino

11. "The pine stays green in winter... wisdom in hardship." — Norman Douglas

12. "My old grandmother always used to say, 'Summer friends will melt away like like summer snows, but winter friends are friends forever." — George R.R. Martin

13. "While I relish our warm months, winter forms our character and brings out our best." — Tom Allen

14. "People don't notice whether it's winter or summer when they're happy." — Anton Chekhov

15. "A snow day literally and figuratively falls from the sky, unbidden, and seems like a thing of wonder." — Susan Orlean

16. "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

17. "Getting an inch of snow is like winning 10 cents in the lottery." — Bill Watterson

18. "You can't get too much winter in the winter." — Robert Frost

19. "Snow was falling, so much like stars filling the dark trees that one could easily imagine its reason for being was nothing more than prettiness." — Mary Oliver

20. "No winter lasts forever; no spring skips its turn." — Hal Borland

21. "Winter is nature's way of saying, 'Up yours.'" — Robert Byrne