Cottagecore quotes time! This past year cottagecore as an aesthetic has exploded from a niche internet interest to incredibly popular. If you don’t totally understand what cottagecore is, you aren’t alone. I was somewhat baffled by it when my students started talking about it this year. Basically, it’s a romanticization of country agricultural images and activities. From strawberry print dresses to making sourdough bread to celebrating the importance of time in nature, cottagecore is taking over Instagram and TikTok trends. It is both a celebration of a simple life and a cozy home, along with an uplifting of activities that take us away from screen time.
Cottagecore might be a new name. But there have been many cycles of literary movements who embraced basically the same ideas — I’m looking at you, 19th century Romantic poets and transcendentalists. For whimsy, softness, fairytales, and fantasy, here are 25 cottagecore quotes from literature perfect for image captions, cottagecore bios, and escaping into a different world.
25 Cottagecore Quotes
“Look at that sea, girls — all silver and shadow and vision of things not seen. We couldn’t enjoy its loveliness any more if we had millions of dollars and ropes of diamonds.” —L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
“All good things are wild and free.” —Henry David Thoreau, Walking
“Listen to the sound of the earth turning.” —Yoko Ono, Grapefruit: A Book of Instructions and Drawings
“She made herself stronger by fighting the wind.” —Frances Hodgson Burnett, The Secret Garden
“I want to stand by the river in my finest dress. I want to sing, strong and hard, and stomp my feet with a hundred others so that the waters hum with our happiness. I want to dance for the renewal of the world.” —Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge, and the Teachings of Plants
“If more of us valued food and cheer and song above hoarded gold, it would be a merrier world.” —J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
“One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.” —William Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida
“I am excessively fond of a cottage; there is always so much comfort, so much elegance about them. And I protest, if I had any money to spare, I should buy a little land and build one myself, within a short distance of London, where I might drive myself down at any time, and collect a few friends about me and be happy. I advise everybody who is going to build, to build a cottage.” —Jane Austen, Sense and Sensibility
“Home is what you take with you, not what you leave behind.” —N. K. Jemisin, The Fifth Season
“For every tale carved in rock there are more inscribed on autumn leaves or woven into spider webs.” —Erin Morgenstern, The Starless Sea
“We have forgotten how to be good guests, how to walk lightly on the earth as its other creatures do.” —Barbara Ward, Only One Earth
“If you will stay close to nature, to its simplicity, to the small things hardly noticeable, those things can unexpectedly become great and immeasurable.” —Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
“You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.” —Isadora Duncan, Isadora Speaks
“Moments, when lost, can’t be found again. They’re just gone.” —Jenny Han, The Summer I Turned Pretty
“I shouldn’t think even millionaires could eat anything nicer than new bread and real butter and honey for tea.” —Dodie Smith, I Capture the Castle
“What are dreams but an internal wilderness and what is desire but a wildness of the soul?” —Louise Erdrich, The Blue Jay’s Dance: A Birth Year
“And forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair” —Khalil Gibran, The Prophet
“It looked like the world was covered in a cobbler crust of brown sugar and cinnamon.” —Sarah Addison Allen, First Frost
“If I had a flower for every time I thought of you, I could walk in my garden forever.” —Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Queen Mary
“To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear.”
—Joy Harjo, In Mad Love and War
“I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. I am, I am, I am.” —Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar
“Life is a gift. Don’t forget to live it.” —Nicola Yoon, Everything, Everything
“If I were a tree, I would have no reason to love a human.” —Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven Boys
“The stars are like the trees in the forest, alive and breathing. And they’re watching me.” —Haruki Murakami, Kafka on the Shore
“You took the truth and you made it into flowers” —Anna-Marie McLemore, Wild Beauty
To stay in the literary cottagecore world a little longer, you might want to read about 17 of the best cottagecore books, a round up of cottagecore gifts, or read some poems that honor the natural world.
