quotations about leaves
The calm shade
Shall bring a kindred calm, and the sweet breeze
That makes the green leaves dance, shall waft a balm
To thy sick heart.
WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT
"Inscription for the Entrance to a Wood"
The leaves do not change color from the blighting touch of the frost, but from the process of natural decay. They fall when the fruit has been ripened and their work is done. And their splendid change of coloring is but their graceful and beautiful surrender of life, when they have finished their summer offering of service to God and man.
TRYON EDWARDS
Light for the Day
What if the leaves were to fall a-weeping, and say, "It will be so painful for us to be pulled from our stalks, when autumn comes?" Foolish fear! Summer goes, and autumn succeeds. The glory of death is upon the leaves; and the gentlest breeze that blows takes them softly and silently from the bough, and they float slowly down, like fiery sparks, upon the moss.
HENRY WARD BEECHER
Life Thoughts
A chaplet of leaves crowns the victor.
VIRGIL
attributed, Day's Collacon
Every leaf is a spacious plain; every line a flowing brook; every period a lofty mountain.
JAMES HERVEY
Meditations Among the Tombs
The rustling of the leaves is like a low hymn to nature.
JAMES ELLIS
attributed, Day's Collacon
The foliage has been losing its freshness through the month of August, and here and there a yellow leaf shows itself like the first gray hair amidst the locks of a beauty who has seen one season too many.
OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES
"The Seasons", Pages from An Old Volume: A Collection of Essays
Ho! for the leaves that eddy down,
Crumpled yellow and withered brown,
Hither and yonder and up the street
And trampled under the passing feet;
Swirling, billowing, drifting by,
With a whisper soft and a rustling sigh,
Starting aloft to windy ways,
Telling the coming of bonfire days.
GRACE STRICKLER DAWSON
"Bonfire Days"
Autumn is a second Spring when every leaf is a flower.
ALBERT CAMUS
attributed, Visions from Earth
Now Autumn's fire burns slowly along the woods,
And day by day the dead leaves fall and melt.
WILLIAM ALLINGHAM
"Autumnal Sonnet", Day and Night Songs
Ah, the pretty whisperers! It was very well
When the leaves were thick and green, awhile ago--
Leaves are secret-keepers; but since the last leaf fell
There is nothing hidden from the eyes below.
SUSAN COOLIDGE
"Secrets", Verses
Autumn is a season of desperate hopes. The leaves are souls begging to turn life on pause. Begging to stop, begging to take a break, hiding under smiles and childish words.
TEODORA SAVU
Listen to the Leaves
Leaves are light, and useless, and idle, and wavering, and changeable; they even dance; yet God has made them part of oak; in so doing He has given us a lesson not to deny the stout-heartedness within, because we see the lightsomeness without.
JULIUS CHARLES HARE
attributed, Guesses at Truth
As fall the light autumnal leaves, one still the other following, till the bough strews all its honors on the earth below.
DANTE ALIGHIERI
The Vision; or Hell, Purgatory, and Paradise
There is not a single leaf which is a mere ornament; all contribute to the fruitfulness of the earth, and the support of its inhabitants.
CHRISTOPH CHRISTIAN STURM
Reflections on the Works of God and of His Providence
Each particle of matter is an immensity, each leaf a world, each insect an inexplicable compendium.
JOHANN CASPAR LAVATER
Physiognomy
The fall of leaves is an emblem of the decline of life.
R. TREVOR
attributed, Day's Collacon
I love the chill October days, when the brown leaves lie thick and sodden underneath your feet.
JEROME K. JEROME
"Silhouettes"
Our Lord has written the promise of resurrection, not in books alone, but in every leaf in springtime.
MARTIN LUTHER
attributed, The Lutheran Witness, 1935
Listen! the wind is rising, and the air is wild with leaves, we have had our summer evenings, now for October eves.
HUMBERT WOLFE
P.L.M.: Peoples, Landfalls, Mountains