June is here — signaling the start of summer and bringing an infectious energy that makes us want to enjoy every moment of longer days and warmer weather! It’s a month of fresh starts, new adventures, and the promise of brighter days ahead.
To help you embrace the beauty of June, we’ve curated a selection of positive and inspiring quotes (and poems) about the sixth month of the year.
And because we’re Good Good Good — we’ve also highlighted the best quotes around June’s awareness months and national days — like Great Outdoors Month, Pride Month, Cancer Survivors Month, Juneteenth, and World Oceans Day. Plus, quotes from inspirational celebrities and leaders with June birthdays.
Whether you’re welcoming summer, celebrating a June birthday, or just looking to add a dose of positivity to kick off the month, these quotes are for you. Scroll all the way through to find some hidden gems.
Here’s to making the most of June!
Explore more monthly quotes: January | February | March | April | May | June | July | August | September | October | November | December
The Best June Quotes —
Famous Quotes About June
“June is the time for being in the world in new ways, for throwing off the cold and dark spots of life.”
— Joan D. Chittister
“If a June night could talk, it would probably boast it invented romance.”
— Bernard Williams
“To read a poem in January is as lovely as to go for a walk in June.”
— Jean-Paul Sartre
“In early June the world of leaf and blade and flowers explodes, and every sunset is different.”
— John Steinbeck, The Winter of Our Discontent
“In June, as many as a dozen species may burst their buds on a single day. No man can heed all of these anniversaries; no man can ignore all of them.”
— Aldo Leopold
“It’s June in January because I’m in love It always is spring in my heart with you in my arms.”
— Leo Robin
“It was June, and the world smelled of roses. The sunshine was like powdered gold over the grassy hillside.”
— Maud Hart Lovelace
“There are moments, above all on June evenings, when the lakes that hold our moons are sucked into the earth, and nothing is left but wine and the touch of a hand.”
— Charles Morgan
“There are two seasons when the leaves are in their glory, their green and perfect youth in June and this their ripe old age.”
— Henry David Thoreau
Quotes for Awareness Holidays in June
A collection of quotes to celebrate June’s awareness months and national days.
→ Explore more of this month’s awareness days in our June calendar
Pride Month
June 1 - June 30
“We have to be visible. We should not be ashamed of who we are.”
— Marsha P. Johnson
“Pride is important because tonight someone still believes they’re better off dead than being themselves.”
— Sterling Graves
“All young people, regardless of sexual orientation or identity, deserve a safe and supportive environment in which to achieve their full potential.”
— Harvey Milk
“When all Americans are treated as equal, no matter who they are or whom they love, we are all more free.”
— Barack Obama
→ Read more quotes about LGBTQ+ pride for Pride Month
→ Read about how to celebrate Pride Month
Gun Violence Awareness Month
June 1 - June 30
“Gun violence feels too big, too powerful to stop. But it’s not too big for you to take some real, meaningful actions. You control what you decide you can live with, and what you can’t. You can choose whether you do something, or do nothing. You are not powerless.”
— Jennifer Rosen Heinz
A mom fighting to protect her children was way more powerful than a gun lobbyist fighting to protect gun manufacturers’ profits.”
― Shannon Watts
“We can choose to be hopeful, try and possibly fail or not be hopeful, give up and definitely fail.”
— David Hogg, cofounder and board member at March For Our Lives
→ Read more quotes about gun violence
Cancer Survivors Month
June 1 - June 30
“Cancer changes your life, often for the better. You learn what’s important, you learn to prioritize, and you learn not to waste your time. You tell people you love them.”
— Joel Siegel
“Life is not a matter of holding good cards, but of playing a poor hand well.”
— Robert Louis Stevenson
“I am not this hair,
I am not this skin,
I am the soul that lives within.”
— Rumi
Great Outdoors Month
June 1 - June 30
“It is good to realize that, if love and peace can prevail on earth, and if we can teach our children to honor nature’s gifts, the joys and beauties of the outdoors will be here forever.”
— Jimmy Carter
“I need to be outside. I need to be in the world and to remember that I am of it.”
— John Green
“Everyone should have access to the outdoors no matter where they live, how much money they have, or what their background is.”
— Deb Haaland
→ Read more quotes about national parks
Immigrant Heritage Month
June 1 - June 30
“Once I thought to write a history of the immigrants in America. Then I discovered that the immigrants were American history.”
— Oscar Handlin
“My dad’s from that generation like a lot of immigrants where he feels like if you come to this country, you pay this thing like the American dream tax: like you’re going to endure some racism, and if it doesn’t cost you your life, well hey, you lucked out. Pay it; there you go, Uncle Sam. I was born here, so I actually had the audacity of equality.”
— Hasan Minhaj
“Not many countries offer second chances. The U.S. gave me that.”
— Jorge Ramos
World Oceans Day
June 8
“The ocean makes me feel really small and it makes me put my whole life into perspective… it humbles you and makes you feel almost like you’ve been baptized. I feel born again when I get out of the ocean.”
— Beyoncé
“Limitless and immortal, the waters are the beginning and end of all things on earth.”
— Heinrich Zimmer
“Because there’s nothing more beautiful than the way the ocean refuses to stop kissing the shoreline, no matter how many times it’s sent away.”
— Sarah Kay
→ Read about how to celebrate World Oceans Day
Juneteenth
June 8
“Juneteenth was never about commemorating a delayed proclamation but about celebrating a people’s enduring spirit.”
— Annette Gordon-Reed
“What I love about Juneteenth is that even in that extended wait, we still find something to celebrate. Even though the story has never been tidy, and Black folks have had to march and fight for every inch of our freedom, our story is nonetheless one of progress.”
— Michelle Obama
“Struggle is a never ending process. Freedom is never really won, you earn it and win it in every generation.”
— Coretta Scott King
→ Read more Juneteenth quotes
→ Read about how to thoughtfully celebrate Juneteenth
World Refugee Day
June 20
“No one puts their children in a boat unless the water is safer than the land.”
— Warsan Shire
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.”
— Emma Lazarus
“Refugees didn’t just escape a place. They had to escape a thousand memories until they’d put enough time and distance between them and their misery to wake to a better day.”
— Nadia Hashimi
→ Read more refugee quotes
→ Read about how to celebrate World Refugee Day
Quotes from Inspiring People with June Birthdays
Brandi Carlile
June 1
“People in this country who are in positions of privilege must learn to find ways of fighting for the just treatment of others, not by centering and platforming themselves, but by holding up the ones who are suffering.”
— Brandi Carlile
“All of these lines across my face, tell you the story of who I am. So many stories of where I’ve been and how I got to where I am.”
— Brandi Carlile
Abby Wambach
June 2
“Leader is not a title that the world gives to you — it’s an offering that you give to the world.”
— Abby Wambach
“There is a wolf inside of every woman. Her wolf is who she was made to be before the world told her who to be. Her wolf is her talent, her power, her dreams, her voice, her curiosity, her courage, her dignity, her choices — her truest identity.”
— Abby Wambach
Michael J. Fox
June 9
“One’s dignity may be assaulted, vandalized and cruelly mocked, but it can never be taken away unless it is surrendered.”
― Michael J. Fox
“Gratitude makes optimism sustainable. If you’re grateful for the opportunities you have, for what you’ve been given to do work-wise, for the opportunities that exist, you’re optimistic. If you can just find those moments, I always feel that if you flip the coin 100 times, you're going to come up heads 51.”
― Michael J. Fox
E.O. Wilson
June 10
“People would rather believe than know.”
― E.O. Wilson
“Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”
― E.O. Wilson
→ Read more E.O. Wilson quotes
Larry Kramer
June 25
“You’d think one day we’d learn. You don't get anything unless you fight for it, united and with visible numbers. If ACT UP taught us anything, it taught us that.”
— Larry Kramer
“I don’t consider myself an artist. I consider myself a very opinionated man who uses words as fighting tools.”
— Larry Kramer
Helen Keller
June 27
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
— Helen Keller
"The true test of a character is to face hard conditions with the determination to make them better."
— Hellen Keller
Inspirational June Quotes
“In these divine pleasures permitted to me of walks in the June night under moon and stars, I can put my life as a fact before me and stand aloof from its honor and shame.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature
“Of course, fresh flowers are the answer to any June gloom you may be feeling. Flowers really do solve all problems.”
— Mia Moretti
“Sweet Zephyr! why that sound of woe?
Is not thy home among the flowers?
Do not the bright June roses blow,
To meet thy kiss at morning hours?”
— Felicia Dorothea Hemans, Poems of Felicia Hemans
“I realized
June had never been
just a month
Music…
never just a tremble
on my lips
warmth was never
merely a blanket.”
— Sanober Khan, A touch, a tear, a tempest
“I did have my moments of despair. It was certainly not — it’s not an experience I would like to have again. And then June came along.”
— Edmund Hillary
“What is one to say about June, the time of perfect young summer, the fulfillment of the promise of the earlier months, and with as yet no sign to remind one that its fresh young beauty will ever fade.”
— Hal Borland, Twelve Moons of the Year
“And since all this loveliness cannot be Heaven, I know in my heart it is June.”
— Abba Woolson
June Poems
“Green was the silence, wet was the light, the month of June trembled like a butterfly.”
— Pablo Neruda, 100 Love Sonnets
“The fountain murmuring of sleep,
A drowsy tune;
The flickering green of leaves that keep
The light of June;
Peace, through a slumbering afternoon,
The peace of June.
A waiting ghost, in the blue sky,
The white curved moon;
June, hushed and breathless, waits, and I
Wait too, with June;
Come, through the lingering afternoon,
Soon, love, come soon.”
— Arthur Symons
“At midnight in the month of June,
I stand beneath the mystic moon.
An opiate vapour, dewy, dim,
Exhales from out her golden rim,
And, softly dripping, drop by drop,
Upon the quiet mountain top.
Steals drowsily and musically
Into the universal valley.
The rosemary nods upon the grave;
The lily lolls upon the wave;
Wrapping the fog about its breast,
The ruin moulders into rest;
Looking like Lethe, see! the lake
A conscious slumber seems to take,
And would not, for the world, awake.
All Beauty sleeps! — and lo! where lies
(Her easement open to the skies)
Irene, with her Destinies!…”
— Edgar Allan Poe, The Raven and Other Poems
“June suns, you cannot store them.
To warm the winter’s cold,
The lad that hopes for heaven
Shall fill his mouth with mold.”
— A.E. Housman, A Shropshire Lad
“O suns and skies and clouds of June,
and flowers of June together,
Ye cannot rival for one hour
October’s bright blue weather…”
— Helen Hunt
Summer Quotes
“Summer afternoon — summer afternoon; to me those have always been the two most beautiful words in the English language.”
— Henry James
“Summers had a logic all their own and they always brought something out in me. Summer was supposed to be about freedom and youth and no school and possibilities and adventure and exploration. Summer was a book of hope. That’s why I loved and hated summers. Because they made me want to believe.”
— Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe
“Summer is a promissory note signed in June, it’s long days spent and gone before you know it, and due to be repaid next January.”
— Hal Borland
“I almost wish we were butterflies and liv’d but three summer days — three such days with you I could fill with more delight than fifty common years could ever contain.”
— John Keats, Bright Star: Love Letters and Poems of John Keats to Fanny Brawne
“Summer, after all, is a time when wonderful things can happen to quiet people. For those few months, you’re not required to be who everyone thinks you are, and that cut-grass smell in the air and the chance to dive into the deep end of a pool give you a courage you don’t have the rest of the year. You can be grateful and easy, with no eyes on you, and no past. Summer just opens the door and lets you out.”
— Deb Caletti, Honey, Baby, Sweetheart
“One way of celebrating the Solstice is to consider it a sacred time of reflection, release, restoration, and renewal.”
— Sarah Ban Breathnach
“The beauty of that June day was almost staggering. After the wet spring, everything that could turn green had outdone itself in greenness and everything that could even dream of blooming or blossoming was in bloom and blossom. The sunlight was a benediction. The breezes were so caressingly soft and intimate on the skin as to be embarrassing.”
— Dan Simmons, Drood
Funny Quotes
“A perfect summer day is when the sun is shining, the breeze is blowing, the birds are singing, and the lawnmower is broken.”
— James Dent
“Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.”
— M. F. K. Fisher
“Spring being a tough act to follow, God created June.”
— Al Bernstein
“A cold in the head in June is an immoral thing.”
— L.M. Montgomery
“No price is set on the lavish summer;
June may be had by the poorest comer.”
— James Russell Lowell, The Vision of Sir Launfal
“It is better to be a young June bug than an old bird of paradise.”
— Mark Twain
“I know well that the June rains just fall.”
— Onitsura
“There are two seasons in Scotland: June and Winter.”
— Billy Connolly
Short Quotes
“I wonder what it would be like to live in a world where it was always June.”
— L. M. Montgomery, Anne of the Island
“It is June. I am tired of being brave.”
— Anne Sexton
“All June I bound the rose in sheaves, Now, rose by rose, I strip the leaves.”
— Robert Browning, Men and Women
“Do not the bright June roses blow to meet thy kiss at morning hours?”
— William C. Bryant
“June is the gateway to summer.”
— Jean Hersey
“It is dry, hazy June weather. We are more of the earth, farther from heaven these days.”
— Henry David Thoreau
“And what is so rare as a day in June? Then, if ever, come perfect days.”
— James Russell
More Quotes
“Occasionally I have come across a last patch of snow on top of a mountain in late May or June. There’s something very powerful about finding snow in summer.”
— Andy Goldsworthy
“The end has come, as come, it must, To all things; in these sweet June days, The teacher and the scholar trust, Their parting feet to separate ways.”
— John Greenleaf Whittier, The Complete Poetical Works of John Greenleaf Whittier
“It is the month of June, the month of leaves and roses, when pleasant sights salute the eyes and pleasant scents the noses.”
— Nathaniel Parker Willis
“Guess the worst day of June was the one where I met you.”
— Taylor Swift, You All Over Me
“On this June day, the buds in my garden are almost as enchanting as the open flowers. Things in bud bring, in the heat of a June noontide, the recollection of the loveliest days of the year, those days of May when all is suggested, nothing yet fulfilled.”
— Francis King, The Well-Considered Garden
“May and June. Soft syllables, gentle names for the two best months in the garden year: cool, misty mornings gently burned away with a warming spring sun, followed by breezy afternoons and chilly nights. The discussion of philosophy is over; it’s time for work to begin.”
— H. Peter Loewer
“June has never looked more beautiful than she does now, unadorned and honest, vulnerable yet invincible.”
— Marie Lu
→ Next Up: Best July Quotes
