Botany, the eldest daughter of medicine. -Johann Hermann Baas
Botany I rank with the most valuable sciences. -Thomas Jefferson
I wandered away on a glorious botanical and geological excursion, which has lasted nearly fifty years and is not yet completed, always happy and free, poor and rich, without thought of a diploma or of making a name, urged on and on through endless, inspiring Godful beauty. -John Muir
Most young people find botany a dull study. So it is, as taught from the text-books in the schools; but study it yourself in the fields and woods, and you will find it a source of perennial delight. -John Burroughs
Flower in the crannied wall, I pluck you out of the crannies;— I hold you here, root and all, in my hand, Little flower—but if I could understand What you are, root and all, and all in all, I should know what God and man is. — Lord Alfred Tennyson
Frost is the greatest artist in our clime – he paints in nature and describes in rime. -Thomas Hood
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It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it. -John Burroughs
“Frost grows on the window glass, forming whorl patterns of lovely translucent geometry.
Breathe on the glass, and you give frost more ammunition.
Now it can build castles and cities and whole ice continents with your breath’s vapor.
In a few blinks you can almost see the winter fairies moving in . . .
But first, you hear the crackle of their wings.” ― Vera Nazarian, The Perpetual Calendar of Inspiration
“Willows bordered the path, like women bent in mourning, their branches shod in ice and brushing the soft white ground like strands of hair. Flowers and shrubs of every variety overflowed their beds, all of them white with frost, a world made of snow and glass, a garden of ghosts.” ― Leigh Bardugo, Rule of Wolves
Remember the goodness of God in the frost of adversity. -Charles Spurgeon
“I run on a thousand chandeliers, as each blade sparkles with frost; a river of glass underfoot. It is as though the elements are reversed: sky is ground and ground is sky, and I am running on the pinheads of constellations, leaping from star to frosted star.” ― Elizabeth-Jane Burnett, The Grassling
“The world looks like something God had just imagined for His own pleasure, doesn’t it? Those trees look as if I could blow them away with a breath–pouf! I’m so glad I live in a world where there are white frosts, aren’t you?” ― Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“At the darkest time of year, Lord Yule laid down his beard of snow and cloak of frost and ice to illuminate the gloom.” ― Stewart Stafford
It was a black and white day of frost, which crawled along the dark trees and outlined twig and branch. The air was misty, and distant objects assumed a mysterious importance. Slight sounds, too, suggested infinite activities to the mind.
“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, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass
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“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
“Draco’s like… snow,” said Hermione quietly, her gaze absent and distracted. “It’s cold and cruel to begin with, but it’s somehow beautiful, and you miss it when it’s not there. And if you hold it in your hands close enough and long enough, it changes. It melts.” ― Bex-chan, Isolation
“…there’s just something beautiful about walking on snow that nobody else has walked on. It makes you believe you’re special, even though you know you’re not.” ― Carol Rifka Brunt, Tell the Wolves I’m Home
“The snow was endless, a heavy blanket on the outdoors; it had a way about it. A beauty. But I knew that, like many things, beauty could be deceiving.” ― Cambria Hebert, Whiteout
“I love you because no two snowflakes are alike, and it is possible, if you stand tippy-toe, to walk between the raindrops.” -Nikki Giovanni
“Winter, a lingering season, is a time to gather golden moments, embark upon a sentimental journey, and enjoy every idle hour.” -Attributed to John Boswell
“You wake up on a winter morning and pull up the shade, and what lay there the evening before is no longer there–the sodden gray yard, the dog droppings, the tire tracks in the frozen mud, the broken lawn chair you forgot to take in last fall. All this has disappeared overnight, and what you look out on is not the snow of Narnia but the snow of home, which is no less shimmering and white as it falls. The earth is covered with it, and it is falling still in silence so deep that you can hear its silence. It is snow to be shoveled, to make driving even worse than usual, snow to be joked about and cursed at, but unless the child in you is entirely dead, it is snow, too, that can make the heart beat faster when it catches you by surprise that way, before your defenses are up. It is snow that can awaken memories of things more wonderful than anything you ever knew or dreamed.” ― Frederick Buechner, Telling the Truth: The Gospel as Tragedy, Comedy, and Fairy Tale
“It is the life of the crystal, the architect of the flake, the fire of the frost, the soul of the sunbeam. This crisp winter air is full of it.” -John Burroughs
LC's Cottage 