Solstice Quotes

• This is the solstice, the still point of the sun, its cusp and midnight, the year's threshold and unlocking, where the past lets go of and becomes the future; the place of caught breath.

  Margaret Atwood

  Letting Go, Past, Years

  Margaret Atwood (2015). “Morning in the Burned House”, p.135, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

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• 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

  Pain, Butterfly, Winter

  "Solstice Joy" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 27, 2011.

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• One way of celebrating the Solstice is to consider it a sacred time of reflection, release, restoration, and renewal.

  Sarah Ban Breathnach

  Healing, Reflection, Restoration

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• 

  In the depths of winter, I finally learned that within me there lay an invincible summer.

  Albert Camus

  Inspirational, Life, Motivational

  "The Unquiet Vision : Mirrors of Man in Existentialism" by Nathan A. Scott, (p. 116), 1969.

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• The Winter Solstice is the time of ending and beginning, a powerful time -- a time to contemplate your immortality. A time to forgive, to be forgiven, and to make a fresh start. A time to awaken.

  Frederick Lenz

  Powerful, Winter, Forgiving

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• Oh, what a catastrophe for man when he cut himself off from the rhythm of the year, from his unison with the sun and the earth. Oh, what a catastrophe, what a maiming of love when it was a personal, merely personal feeling, taken away from the rising and the setting of the sun, and cut off from the magic connection of the solstice and the equinox!

  D. H. Lawrence

  Taken, Cutting, Men

  D. H. Lawrence, Michael Squires (2002). “Lady Chatterley's Lover and A Propos of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover'”, p.323, Cambridge University Press

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• Both the Winter and the Summer Solstices are expressions of love. They show us the opposition of light and dark, expansion and contraction, that characterize our experiences in the Earth school so that we can recognize our options as we move through our lives.

  Gary Zukav

  Summer, Moving, School

  "Twin Miracles" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 29, 2012.

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• I celebrate the spirit of Christmas. It's the winter solstice celebration, rebirth and new possibilities.

  Ian Astbury

  Winter, Spirit, Celebration

  "Ian Astbury on the Death of the Rock Star". Interview with Mick Stingley, www.esquire.com. December 27, 2013.

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• The Christians stole the winter solstice from the pagans, and capitalism stole it from the Christians.

  George Monbiot

  Christian, Winter, Atheism

  "Why vegans were right all along" by George Monbiot, www.theguardian.com. December 23, 2002.

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• Each solstice is a domain of experience unto itself. At the Summer Solstice, all is green and growing, potential coming into being, the miracle of manifestation painted large on the canvas of awareness. At the Winter Solstice, the wind is cold, trees are bare and all lies in stillness beneath blankets of snow.

  Gary Zukav

  Summer, Lying, Winter

  "Twin Miracles" by Gary Zukav, www.huffingtonpost.com. December 19, 2012.

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• Summer afternoon, summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.

  Henry James

  Beautiful, Summer, Time

  Quoted in Edith Wharton, A Backward Glance (1934)

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• There is a Zone whose even Years
  No Solstice interrupt -
  Whose Sun constructs perpetual Noon
  Whose perfect Seasons wait -
  Whose Summer set in Summer, till
  The Centuries of June
  And Centuries of August cease
  And Consciousness - is Noon.

  Emily Dickinson

  Summer, Years, June

  Emily Dickinson, Ralph William Franklin (1999). “The Poems of Emily Dickinson”, p.421, Harvard University Press

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• In the West people are basically oblivious to power, solstices, enlightenment and everything that matters.

  Frederick Lenz

  Buddhism, People, Humanity

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• The irony of Christmas is always upon the poor in heart; the mystery of the solstice is always upon the rest of us.

  John Cheever

  Heart, Irony, Mystery

  John Cheever (2010). “Falconer”, p.163, Vintage

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• My life's long radiant Summer halts at last, And lo! beside my path way I behold Pursuing Autumn glide: nor frost nor cold Has heralded her presence; but a vast Sweet calm that comes not till the year has passed Its fevered solstice, and a tinge of gold Subdues the vivid colouring of bold And passion-hued emotions. I will cast My August days behind me with my May, Nor strive to drag them into Autumn's place, Nor swear I hope when I do but remember. Now violet and rose have had their day, I'll pluck the soberer asters with good grace And call September nothing but September.

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox

  Summer, Sweet, Passion

  Ella Wheeler Wilcox (2016). “Complete Poetical Works of Ella Wheeler Wilcox (Delphi Classics)”, p.1135, Delphi Classics

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• 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

  Home, Winter, Weather

  Edith Sitwell (2011). “Taken Care Of: An Autobiography”, p.176, A&C Black

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• That's what Hanukkah is about: trying to survive the darkness on the far-fetched hope there's still some life and light left in the universe. It's more than just a religious story. The days have been growing shorter, imperceptibly but inescapably darker.... Heading into the night of the winter solstice, every spiritual tradition has some kind of festival of light. We're all just whistling in the dark, hoping against hope that someone up there will see these little Hanukkah candles and get the hint.

  Lawrence Kushner

  Spiritual, Religious, Dark

  Lawrence Kushner (2010). “I'm God, You're Not: Observations on Organized Religion & Other Disguises of the Ego”, p.103, Jewish Lights Publishing

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• The Christian Bible is a symbolic book, not a literal one. The one Christians know as Jesus was actually a symbol for the sun. Ancient sun worshippers believed the sun died at the end of the winter solstice and then three days later it would be reborn at the start of its cycle - December 25.

  David Icke

  Christian, Jesus, Book

  Interview, metro.co.uk. July 16, 2002.

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• The two revolutions, I mean the annual revolutions of the declination and of the centre of the Earth, are not completely equal; that is the return of the declination to its original value is slightly ahead of the period of the centre. Hence it necessarily follows that the equinoxes and solstices seem to anticipate their timing, not because the sphere of the fixed stars moves to the east, but rather the equatorial circle moves to the west, being at an angle to the plane of the ecliptic in proportion to the declination of the axis of the terrestrial globe.

  Nicolaus Copernicus

  Stars, Moving, Mean

  Nicolaus Copernicus (1976). “On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres”, David & Charles Publishers

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• She looked up, her face pink as a Christmas ham. “You ever try chasing down a car?” she gasped. “I’ll one-up you. I gave Scott my hot dog and asked if he’d go to Summer Solstice with me.” “What does the hot dog have to do with anything?” “I said he’d be a wiener if he didn’t go with me.” Vee wheezed laughter. “I’d have run harder had I known I’d get to see you call him a wiener.

  Becca Fitzpatrick

  Summer, Running, Dog

  Becca Fitzpatrick (2013). “The Complete Hush, Hush Saga: includes Hush, Hush; Crescendo; Silence and Finale”, p.488, Simon and Schuster

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• Now, near the Winter Solstice, it is good to light candles. All the nice meanings of bringing light to the world can be beautiful. But perhaps we are concentrating on lighting the world because we don't know how to light up our own lives.

  Ralph Levy

  Beautiful, Nice, Winter

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• Sweet, sweet burn of sun and summer wind, and you my friend, my new fun thing, my summer fling.

  K. D. Lang

  Summer, Sweet, Fun

  Song: Summerfling

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• The night of December 25, to which date the Nativity of Christ was ultimately assigned, was exactly that of the birth of the Persian savior Mithra, who, as an incarnation of eternal light, was born the night of the winter solstice (then dated December 25) at midnight, the instant of the turn of the year from increasing darkness to light.

  Joseph Campbell

  Winter, Night, Years

  Joseph Campbell, M. J. Abadie (1981). “The Mythic Image”, p.33, Princeton University Press

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• Midnight, and the clock strikes. It is Christmas Day, the werewolves birthday, the door of the solstice still wide enough open to let them all slink through.

  Angela Carter

  Christmas, Doors, Midnight

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• The Romans had, like other Pagan nations, a nature festival, called by them Saturnalia, and the Northern peoples had Yule; both celebrated the turn of the year from the death of winter to the life of spring - the winter solstice. As this was an auspicious change the festival was a very joyous one... The giving of presents and the burning of candles characterized it. Among the Northern people the lighting of a huge log in the houses of the great and with appropriate ceremonies was a feature.

  Samuel L. Jackson

  Spring, Winter, Years

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