20 September Quotes to Welcome Autumn’s Arrival
September marks the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere, a month of transition and new beginnings. It’s a time when we can reflect on the past, plan for the future, and embrace the changes in the air.
September: Key Dates
- Labor Day (U.S.): Celebrated on the first Monday of September, it honors the contributions of American workers.
- International Day of Peace: September 21st, promoting peace across nations.
- Autumnal Equinox: This astronomical event, occurring on September 22nd or 23rd, marks the official first day of fall in the Northern Hemisphere.
- Famous Birthdays: Notable September birthdays include writers Leo Tolstoy, Agatha Christie, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Faulkner, and T. S. Eliot, as well as singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen.
Whether you’re gearing up for a new school year, diving into work projects, or simply seeking fresh motivation, September quotes can offer the spark you need.
September has come, it is hers whose vitality leaps in the autumn, whose nature prefers trees without leaves and a fire in the fire-place. Louis Macneice, Autumn Journal (ed. Random House, 1940), Page 19
O sweet September! thy first breezes bring the dry leaf’s rustle and the squirrel’s laughter. George Arnold, The Poems of George Arnold (ed. J. R. Osgood & Co., 1880), Page 221
September’s Baccalaureate
A combination is
Of Crickets – Crows – and Retrospects
And a dissembling Breeze.Emily Dickinson, Emily Dickinson (ed. Dell, 1960), Page 119
SEPTEMBER: it was the most beautiful of words, he’d always felt, evoking orange-flowers, swallows, and regret. Alexander Theroux, Darconville's Cat (ed. Doubleday, 1981), Page 3
September days have the warmth of summer in their briefer hours, but in their lengthening evenings a prophetic breath of autumn. Rowland E. Robinson, In New England Fields and Woods (ed. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1896), Page 143
All the months are crude experiments out of which the perfect September is made. Virginia Woolf, A Passionate Apprentice: The Early Journals (1897-1909), (ed. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1990) Page 295
Nostalgia – that’s the autumn, dreaming through September. Just a million lovely things I will remember. Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, The Best-Loved Poems of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis (ed. Hyperion, 2001), Page 171
September is dressing herself in showy dahlias and splendid marigolds and starry zinnias.Oliver Wendell Holmes, The writings of Oliver Wendell Holmes (ed. Houghton, Mifflin & Co., 1895), Volume VIII, Page 162
Happy we who can bask in this warm September sun, which illumines all creatures. Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers (ed. James Munroe and Co., 1849), Page 70
By all these lovely tokens, September days are here. With summer’s best of weather and autumn’s best of cheer.Helen Hunt Jackson, Poems (ed. Roberts Brothers, 1893), Page 207
Lovely are September days: the morning mist, the evening haze.Patience Strong, The Tapestry of Time (ed. F. Muller, 1975), Page 17
How smartly September comes in, like a racing gig, all style, no confusion. Eleanor Clark, Eyes, Etc.: A Memoir (ed. G. K. Hall, 1978), Page 186
September is the other January. Gretchen Rubin, Happier at Home (ed. Three Rivers Press, 2012), Page 15
There comes a day each September when you wake up and know the summer is over and fall has arrived. Ann Rinaldi, Time Enough for Drums (ed. Holiday House, 1986), Page 212
There is a time in late September when the leaves are still green, and the days are still warm, but somehow you know that it is all about to end as if summer was holding its breath, and when it let it out again, it would be autumn. Sharyn McCrumb, King's Mountain (ed. Thomas Dunne Books, 2013), Page 105
September showed up right on schedule, and lasted a whole month. Jenny Wingfield, The Homecoming of Samuel Lake (ed. HarperPress, 2011), Page 218
Disclosure: Our content is reader-supported. If you click on some of our links, we may earn a commission. Read our editorial process.