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Do I need sunglasses, a wool hat or a raincoat?

It’s spring! I think. The calendar says spring dawned March 30, but I have awakened to snow and winter coats quite a few days this April.

Mixed between them are afternoons of shirtsleeves and sunshine.

As the great philosopher Mark Twain once said, “In the spring, I have counted 136 different kinds of weather inside of 24 hours.”

Which is why the great philosopher Henry Van Dyke proclaimed, “The first day of spring is one thing, and the first spring day is another. The difference between them is sometimes as great as a month.”

As I write this, the sun is shining and birds are singing. As you read this, snow may be falling again and whistling wind may be rattling the windows.

For whatever kind of day it might be today, I picked a bouquet of spring quotes from the great philosophers to blossom on your table.

“It’s spring fever. That is what the name of it is. And when you’ve got it, you want — oh, you don’t quite know what it is you do want, but it just fairly makes your heart ache, you want it so!” — Mark Twain

“Spring is the time of the year, when it is summer in the sun and winter in the shade.” — Charles Dickens

“Spring is when you feel like whistling, even with a shoe full of slush.” — Doug Larson

“The promise of spring’s arrival is enough to get anyone through the bitter winter!” — Jen Selinsky

“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest.” — Ernest Hemingway

“Spring is nature’s way of saying, Let’s party!” — Robin Williams

“A little madness in the spring is wholesome even for the king.” — Emily Dickinson

“Science has never drummed up quite as effective a tranquilizing agent as a sunny spring day.” — W. Earl Hall

“If spring came but once a century instead of once a year, or burst forth with the sound of an earthquake and not in silence, what wonder and expectation there would be in all hearts to behold the miraculous change.” — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

“If we had no winter, the spring would not be so pleasant: if we did not sometimes taste of adversity, prosperity would not be so welcome.” — Anne Bradstreet

“An optimist is the human personification of spring.” — Susan J. Bissonette

“It is spring again. The earth is like a child that knows poems by heart.” — Rainer Maria Rilke

“Spring work is going on with joyful enthusiasm.” — John Muir

“In the spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt.” — Margaret Atwood

“A life without love is like a year without spring.” — Octavian Paller

“In springtime, love is carried on the breeze. Watch out for flying passion or kisses whizzing by your head.” — Emma Racine deFleur

“If people did not love one another, I really don’t see what use there would be in having any spring.” — Victor Hugo

“Spring shows what God can do with a drab and dirty world.” — Virgil A. Kraft

“Despite the forecast, live like it’s spring.” — Lilly Pulitzer

Bloom where you’re planted for spring. Throw flowers, mud or snowballs at Cole at burtseyeview@tribtoday.com, the Burton W. Cole page on Facebook or at www.burtonwcole.com.

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