List of sundial mottos
Many sundials bear a motto[1] to reflect the sentiments of its maker or owner.
English mottos
- Be as true to each other as this dial is to the sun.
- Begone about Thy business.
- Come along and grow old with me; the best is yet to be.[2]
- Hours fly, Flowers die. New days, New ways, Pass by. Love stays.[3]
- I only tell of sunny hours.
- Let others tell of storms and showers, I tell of sunny morning hours.
- Life is but a shadow: the shadow of a bird on the wing.
- Self-dependent power can time defy, as rocks resist the billows and the sky.[4][5]
- Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.[5][6]
- Today is Yesterday's Tomorrow [7]
Latin mottos
Time flies
- Hora fugit, ne tardes. (The hour flees, don't be late.)[8]
- Ruit hora. (The hour is flowing away.)[8]
- Tempus breve est. (Time is short.)[8]
- Tempus fugit [velut umbra]. (Time flees [like a shadow].)[8][9]
- Tempus volat, hora fugit. (Time flies, the hour flees.)[8]
Make use of time
- Altera pars otio, pars ista labori. (Devote this hour to work, another to leisure.)[8]
- Festina lente. (Make haste, but slowly.)[8]
- [Fugit hora] – carpe diem. ([The hour flees] – seize the day.)[8]
- Utere, non numera. (Use the hours, don't count them.)[8]
- Utere non reditura. (Use the hour, it will not come again.)[8]
Human mortality
Martial's Pereunt et Imputantur on St Buryan's parish church, Cornwall
Horace's Umbra Sumus on Brick Lane Mosque, London
- Ex iis unam cave. (Beware of one hour.)[8]
- Lente hora, celeriter anni. (An hour passes slowly, but the years go by quickly.)[8]
- Meam vide umbram, tuam videbis vitam. (Look at my shadow and you will see your life.)[8]
- Memor esto brevis ævi. (Remember how short is life.)[8]
- Mox nox. (Night, shortly.)
- [Nobis] pereunt et imputantur. ([The hours] are consumed and will be charged [to our] account)[10]
- Omnes vulnerant, ultima necat. (All hours wound; the last one kills.)[8]
- [Pulvis et] umbra sumus. (We are [dust and] shadow.)[11]
- Serius est quam cogitas. (It's later than you think.)[8]
- Sic labitur ætas. (Thus passes a lifetime.)[8]
- Sic vita fluit, dum stare videtur. (Life flows away as it seems to stay the same.)[8]
- Ultima latet ut observentur omnes. (Our last hour is hidden from us, so that we watch them all.)[8]
- Umbra sicut hominis vita. (A person's life is like a shadow.)[8]
- Una ex his erit tibi ultima. (One of these [hours] will be your last.)[8]
- Ver non semper viret. (Springtime does not last.)[8]
- Vita fugit, sicut umbra (Life passes like the shadow.)
- Vita similis umbræ. (Life resembles a shadow.)[8]
Transience
- Tempus edax rerum. (Time devours things.)[8]
- Tempus vincit omnia. (Time conquers everything.)[8]
- Vidi nihil permanere sub sole. (I have seen that nothing under the sun endures).[8][12]
Virtue
- Dum tempus habemus operemur bonum. (While we have time, let us do good.)[8]
- Omnes æquales sola virtute discrepantes. (All hours are the same – they are distinguished only by good deeds.)[8]
Living
Horace's Dona præsentis cape lætus horæ ac linque severe on the Villa Vizcaya, Miami, Florida
Vita in motu on one of the sundials (right) at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England
- Amicis qualibet hora. (Any hour for my friends.)[8]
- Dona præsentis cape lætus horæ [ac linque severe]. (Take the gifts of this hour.)[8][13]
- Fruere hora. (Enjoy the hour.)[8]
- Post tenebras spero lucem. (I hope for light to follow darkness.)[8]
- Semper amicis hora. (Always time for friends.)
- Sit fausta quæ labitur. (May the hour be favorable.)
- Sol omnibus lucet. (The sun shines for everyone.)[8]
- Tempus omnia dabit. (Time will give everything.)[8]
- Una dabit quod negat altera. (One hour will give what another has refused.)[8]
- Vita in motu. (Life is in motion.)[8]
- Vivere memento. (Remember to live.)[8]
Humorous
- Horas non numero nisi æstivas (I count only the summer hours)[14]
- Horas non numero nisi serenas (I count only the sunny hours)
- Nunc est bibendum (Now is the time to drink)[15]
- Si sol deficit, respicit me nemo. (If the sun's gone, nobody looks at me)
- Sine sole sileo. (Without the sun I fall silent.)
German mottos
- Mach' es wie die Sonnenuhr; Zähl' die heitren Stunden nur! (Do like a sundial; count only the sunny hours!)
References
- ↑ The plural of motto may be either mottoes or mottos.
- ↑ From Robert Browning's poem Rabbi ben Ezra
- ↑ From Henry van Dyke's Inscription for Katrina's Sun-Dial
- ↑ From Oliver Goldsmith's poem The Deserted Village
- 1 2 Waugh 1973, p. 124
- ↑ From Isaac Watts' hymn Our God, Our Help in Ages Past
- ↑ Morehead_Planetarium_and_Science_Center#/media/File:Morehead_Planetarium_Sundial.JPG
- 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Rohr 1965, pp. 127–129
- ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20131015211604/http://www.collectif-paysans.org/tournevis/?p=640. Archived from the original on October 15, 2013. Retrieved July 30, 2013. Missing or empty
|title=(help) - ↑ Martial, Epigrams, book V, ode xx, line 13
- ↑ Horace, Odes, Book IV, ode vii, line 16
- ↑ Ecclesiastes (Kohelet) Chapter 2, verse 11
- ↑ Horace, Odes, Book III, ode iix, line 27
- ↑ Probably unique to the William Willett memorial in Petts Wood, England, which shows British Summer Time
- ↑ Horace, Odes, Book I, ode xxxvii, line 1
Bibliography
- Earle, AM (1971). Sundials and Roses of Yesterday. Rutland, VT: Charles E. Tuttle. ISBN 0-8048-0968-2. LCCN 74142763. Reprint of 1902 book published by Macmillan (New York).
- Rohr, RRJ (1996). Sundials: History, Theory, and Practice. translated by G. Godin. New York: Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-29139-1. Slightly amended reprint of the 1970 translation published by University of Toronto Press, Toronto. The original was published in 1965 as Les Cadrans solaires by Gauthier-Villars (Montrouge, France).
- Cadran Solaires. Nyons: Artissime. 1988. Selections from the 1895 paper by Raphaël Blanchard in the Bulletin de la Société d'Etudes des Hautes-Alpes.
Further reading
- Boursier, C (1936). 800 Devises de cadrans solaires (in French). Paris.
- Cross, L (1915). the Book of Old Sundials. illustrated by W Hogg. London: Foulis Press.
- Gatty, Mrs Alfred; Eden, HKF; Lloyd, E (1900). The Book of Sun-Dials (4th ed.). London: George Bell & Sons.
- Hyatt, AH (1903). A Book of Sundial Mottoes. New York: Scott-Thaw.
- Landon, P (1904). Helio-tropes, or new Posies for Sundials. London: Methuen.
- Leadbetter, C (1773). Mechanick Dialling. London: Caslon.
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