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sun quotes

  • The spacious firmament on high, With all the blue ethereal sky, And spangled heavens, a shining frame, Their great Original proclaim. Th'unwearied sun from day to day Does his Creator's power display; And publishes to every land The work of an Almighty hand.

    -Joseph Addison
      In The Spectator, no.465, 23  Aug.

  • Post nubila maxima, Phoebus. After the greatest clouds, the sun.

    -Alan of Lille also known as  'Alanus de Insulis'
      Liber Parabolarum, ch.1, l.33.

  • The sun provides the moon with its brightness.

    -Anaxagoras
    Fragment in Plutarch De facie in orbe lunae, 929b.

  • It was no summer progress. A cold coming they had of it, at this time of the year; just, the worst time of the year, to take a journey, and specially a long journey, in. The ways deep, the weather sharp, the days short, the sun farthest off in solstitio brumali, the very dead of winter. See Eliot 306:73.

    - Lancelot Andrewes
      Of the Nativity, sermon15.

  • O ye'll tak the high road, and I'll tak the low road, And I'll be in Scotland afore ye, But me and my true love will never meet again On the bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond By yon bonnie banks and by yon bonnie braes, Where the sun shines bright on Loch Lomond.

    -Anonymous
      'The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond', chorus and stanza1. The author was a  Jacobite imprisoned in Carlisle.

  • Is it so small a thing To have enjoyed the sun, To have lived light in the spring, To have loved, to have thought, to have done.

    - Matthew Arnold
      'Empedocles on Etna', act1, sc.2, l.397^400.

  • Rather than have it the principal thing in my son's mind,I wouldgladly havehimthink thatthesunwent around the earth, and that thestars were so many spangles set in the bright blue firmament.

    -Thomas Arnold
      Letter to Dr Greenhill, 9 May.

  • The terror of his name has stretched itself Wherever there is sun.

    - Francis and Fletcher,John Beaumont
    A King and No King, act 2, sc.2.

  • Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Miss J. Hunter Dunn, Furnish'd and burnish'd by Aldershot sun, What strenuous singles we played after tea, We in the tournamentyou against me!

    - SirJohn Betjeman
      New Bats in Old Belfries,'A Subaltern's Love-Song'.

  •    Does Mum, the Persil-user, still believe That there's no Devil and that youth is bliss? As certain as the sun behind the Downs And quite as plain to see, the Devil walks.

    - SirJohn Betjeman
      A Few Late Chrysanthemums,'Original Sin on the Sussex Coast'.

  • I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the L, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that keepeth Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep. The L is thy keeper: the L is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moonby night.The L shall preservetheefromallevil: he shall preserve thy soul. The L shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDORDORDORDORDPsalms121:1^8.

  • Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all isvanity.What profit hatha manof all his labour which he taketh under the sun? One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes1:2^4.

  • The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes1:9.

  • Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when thou shalt say, I have no pleasure in them; While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars, be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain: In the day when the keepers of the house shall tremble, and the strong men shall bow themselves, and the grinders cease because theyare few, and those that look out of the windows be darkened, And the doors shall be shut in the streets, when the sound of the grinding is low, and he shall rise up at the voice of the bird, and all the daughters of musick shall be brought low: Also when they shall be afraid of that which is high, and fears shall be in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and mournersgo about the streets: Or ever the silver cord be loosed, or the golden bowl be broken, or the pitcher be broken at the fountain, or the wheel broken at the cistern. Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God who gave it.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    Ecclesiastes12:1^7.

  • For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; Daniel and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the L of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch.But untoyou that fear my nameshall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall.

    -Bible (Old Testament)
    ORDMalachi 4:1^2.

  • That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew 5:45.

  • And hespake many things untothem inparables, saying, Behold, a sower went forthtosow; And whenhesowed, some seeds fell by the wayside, and the fowls came and devoured them up: Some fell upon stony places, where they had not much earth: and forthwith they sprung up, because they had no deepness of earth: And when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away. And some fell among thorns; and the thorns sprung up, and choked them: But others fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Matthew13:3^8.

  • And thesunwasdarkened, andtheveilofthetemplewas rent in the midst.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    St Luke 23:45.

  • Wherefore putting away lying, speak every man truth with his neighbour: for we are members one of another. Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Ephesians 4:25^6.

  • And in the midst of the seven candlesticks one like unto the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to the foot, and girt about the paps with golden girdle. His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp two-edged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. And when I saw him, I fell as his feet as dead.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation1:13^17.

  • These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and servehimdayand night inhistemple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe awayall tears from their eyes.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation 7:14^17.

  • And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars.

    -Bible (NewTestament)
    Revelation12:1.

  • They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.

    - (Robert) Laurence Binyon
      'For the Fallen', in The Times, 21 Sep.

  • What childishness is it that while there's breath of life in our bodies, we are determined to rush to see the sun the other way round?

    - Elizabeth Bishop
      'Questions of  Travel'.

  • Whether on Ida's shady brow, Or in the chambers of the East, The chambers of the sun that now From ancient melody have ceased.

    -William Blake
      Poetical Sketches,'To The Muses'.

  • This was my countryand it may be yet, But something flew between me and the sun.

    - Edmund Charles Blunden
      'The Resignation'.

  • Cricket to us was more than play, It was a worship in the summer sun.

    - Edmund Charles Blunden
    'Pride of the Village'. Quoted in  Alan Ross (ed)  The Penguin Cricketer's Companion (1978).

  • When you come to the end of a perfect day, And you sit alone with your thought, While the chimes ring out with a carol gay For the joy that the day has brought, Do you think what the end of a perfect day Can mean to a tired heart, When the sun goes down with a flaming ray, And the dear friends have to part?

    - CarrieJacobs Bond
      'A Perfect Day'.

  •    There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things: there's likewise a wind on the heath. Life is very sweet, brother; who would wish to die?

    - George Henry Borrow
    Lavengro, ch.25.

  • The night has a thousand eyes, And the day but one; Yet the light of the bright world dies, With the dying sun. The mind has a thousand eyes, And the heart but one; Yet the light of a whole life dies, When love is done. See Lyly 523:12.

    - F(rancis) W(illiam) Bourdillon
      Among the Flowers,'Light'.

  •    The time is right to mix sentences with dirt and the sun with punctuation and rain with verbs.

    - Richard Brautigan
      Please Plant This Book,'Squash'.

  • Our sun is one of100 billion stars in our galaxy.Our galaxy is one of billions of galaxies populating the universe.It would be the height of presumption to think that we are the only living things in that enormous immensity.

    -Wernher von Braun
      In the NewYork Times, 29  Apr.

  •    Breathless, we flung us on the windy hill. Laughed in the sun, and kissed the lovely grass.

    - Rupert Chawner Brooke
      'Sonnet'.

  • Whilst I study to find how I am a microcosm of little world,I find myself something more than the great. There is surelya piece of divinity in us; something that was before the elements, and owes no homage unto the sun.

    - SirThomas Browne
    ^5  Religio Medici (published1643), pt.2, section11.

  • Life is a pure flame, and we live byan invisible sun within us.

    - SirThomas Browne
      Hydriotaphia (Urn Burial), ch.5.

  • Life itself is but the shadow of death, and souls departed but the shadows of the living. All things fall under this name.The sun itself is but the dark simulacrum, and light but the shadow of God.

    - SirThomas Browne
      The Garden of Cyrus, ch.2.

  • And it isgood to cheat the pair, and gibe, Letting the rank tongue blossom into speech. Setebos, Setebos, and Setebos! Thinketh, He dwelleth i'the cold o'the moon. Thinketh He made it, with the sun to match, But not the stars; the stars came otherwise.

    - Robert Browning
      Dramatis Personae,'Caliban upon Setebos', stanza1.

  • Mit einemWorte: wir wollen niemand in den Schatten stellen aber wir verlangen auch unseren Platz an der Sonne. In a word, we desire to throw no one into the shade, but we also demand our own place in the sun.

    - Prince Bernhard Heinrich von Bu« l ow
      Speech to the Reichstag, 6 Dec.

  •    The angels all were singing out of tune, And hoarse with having little else to do, Excepting to wind up the sun and moon, Or curb a runaway young star or two.

    -Rochdale
      The Vision of  Judgement, stanza 2.

  • The sun was shining on the sea, Shining with all his might: He did his very best to make The billows smooth and bright And this was odd, because it was The middle of the night. 196

    -Dodgson
      Tweedledee. Through the Looking-Glass, ch.4, 'Tweedledum and Tweedledee'.

  • Tengo el impuro amor de las ciudades, y a este sol que ilumina las edades prefiero yo del gas las claridades. I have an impure love for cities, and I prefer the light coming from gaslamps rather than this sun that lights the ages.

    -Julia n  del Casal
      Bustos y rimas,'En el campo' ('In the Countryside').

  • Iwished to copy nature but I could not.But Iwassatisfied when I discovered that the sun could not be reproduced but that it must be represented by something elsecolour.

    - Paul Ce  zanne
    Quoted in D Hooker (ed)  Art of the Western World (1989).

  • Til that the brighte sonne loste his hewe; For th'orisonte hath reft the sonne his lyght; This is as muche to seye as it was nyght!

    - Geoffrey Chaucer
      Canterbury  Tales,'The Franklin's Tale', l.1016^8.

  • And not by eastern windows only, When daylight comes, comes in the light, In front the sun climbs slow, how slowly, But westward, look, the land is bright.

    - Arthur Hugh Clough
      'Say Not the Struggle Naught  Availeth'.

  • They told me, Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, They brought bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed. I wept as I remembered how often you and I Had tired thesunwithtalking and sent himdownthesky.

    -William originally  WilliamJohnson Cory
      Ionica, Poems,'Heraclitus', his translationof an epigram by Callimachus.

  • Mad dogs and Englishmen Go out in the midday sun.

    - Sir Noe«  l Peirce Coward
      'Mad Dogs and Englishmen' (song).

  • What is Africa to me: Copper sun or scarlet sea, Jungle star or jungle track, Strong bronzed men, or regal black Women from whose loins I sprang When the birds of Eden sang?

    - Countee Cullen
      On These I Stand,'Heritage'.

  • Fluent in all the languages dead or living, the sun comes up with a word of worlds all spinning in a world of words.

    - (Thomas) Allen Munro Curnow
      An Incorrigible Music,'A Balanced Bait in Handy Pellet Form'.

  • L'amor che move il sole e l'altre stelle. The love that moves the sun and the other stars.

    -Dante Alighieri originally Durante
    c.1320  Divina Commedia,'Paradiso', canto 33, l.145.

  • The evil of it is, that it is a world wrapped up in too much jeweller's cotton and fine wool, and cannot hear the rushingofthelarger worlds, and cannot seethemasthey circle round the sun. It is a deadened world, and its growth is sometimes unhealthy for want of air.

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^3  Of the world of fashion. Bleak House, ch.2.

  • 'It is,'says Chadband,'the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moonof moons,thestarofstars.It isthelightof Terewth.'

    - CharlesJohn Huffam Dickens
    ^3  Bleak House, ch.25.

  • Yes†stand out of my sun a little. SeeAlexander the Great11:18.

    -Diogenes of Sinope
    His reply when asked by Alexander the Great if he lacked anything. Quoted in Plutarch Parallel Lives,'Alexander'.

  • I will not look upon the quickening sun, But straight her beauty to my sense shall run; The air shall note her soft, the fire most pure; Water suggest her clear, and the earth sure; Time shall not lose our passages.

    -John Donne
    c.1595  Elegies, no.12,'His Parting from Her'.

  • Busy old fool, unruly sun, Why dost thou thus, Through windows, and through curtains, call on us? Must to thy motions lovers'seasons run? Saucy pedantic wretch, go chide Late schoolboys, and sour prentices, Go tell court-huntsmen that the King will ride, Call countryants to harvest offices; Love, all alike, no season knows, nor clime, Nor hours, days, months, which are the rags of time.

    -John Donne
    c.1595^1605  'The Sun Rising', collected in Songs and Sonnets (1633).

  • And new philosophy calls all in doubt, The element of fire is quite put out; The sun is lost, and th'earth, and no man's wit Can well direct him, where to look for it.

    -John Donne
      'An  Anatomy of the World: The First  Anniversary'.

  • He brought light out of darkness, not out of a lesser light; he canbring thysummerout of winter, though thou have no spring† God comes to thee, not as in the dawning of the day, not as in the bud of the spring, but as the sun at noontoillustrateall shadows,asthesheavesinharvestto fill all penuries. All occasions invite his mercies, and all times are his seasons.

    -John Donne
      Sermons,'Christmas Day,1624'.

  • The Soviets sought not a place in the sun, but the sun itself. Their objective was the world. They would not tolerate compromise on goals, only on tactics.

    -John Foster Dulles
    Comment to his brother Allen. Quoted in Peter Grose Gentleman Spy (1994).

  • He was likea cock who thoughtthesun had risento hear him crow.

    - George pseudonym of  MaryAnn Evans Eliot
      Adam Bede, ch.33.

  • Time and the bell have buried the day, The black cloud carries the sun away.

    -T(homas) S(tearns) Eliot
      Four Quartets,'Burnt Norton', pt.4.

  • My care is like my shadow in the sun, Follows me flying, flies when I pursue it, Stands and lies by me, doth what I have done.

    -Elizabeth I
    c.1582  'On Monsieur's Departure'.

  • Something there is that doesn't love a wall, That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it, And spills the upper boulders in the sun; And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

    - Robert Lee Frost
      North of Boston,'Mending Wall'.

  • There is no gilding of setting sun or glamor of poetry to light up the ferocious and endless toil of the farmers' wives.

    - (Hannibal) Hamlin Garland
      Boy Life on the Prairie,'Melons and Early Frost'.

  • With lack of sleep and too much understanding I grow a little crazy,Ithink, likeall menat seawho livetoo closeto each other and too close thereby to all that is monstrous under the sun and moon.

    - Sir William (Gerald) Golding
      Rites of Passage, closing words.

  •    The insect youth are on the wing, Eager to taste the honeyed spring, And float amid the liquid noon: Some lightly o'er the current skim, Some show their gaily-gilded trim Quick-glancing to the sun.

    -Thomas Gray
      Ode on the Spring, l.25^30.

  • Oft have we seen him at the peep of dawn Brushing with hasty steps the dews away To meet the sun upon the upland lawn.

    -Thomas Gray
    Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard, l.98^100.

  • Far from the sun and summer-gale, In thy green lap was Nature's darling laid.

    -Thomas Gray
      Of  William Shakespeare. The Progress of Poesy, l.83^4.

  • The kiss of the sun for pardon, The song of the birds for mirth, One is nearer God's Heart in a garden Than anywhere else on earth.

    - Dorothy Frances Gurney
      'God's Garden'.

  • Education is another sun to the educated.

    -Heraclitus   fl.500
    Fragment quoted in H Diels and W Kranz (eds) Die Fragmente der Vorsokratiker, vol.1 (1951),181, no.134.

  • Lord of all being, throned afar, Thy glory flames from sun and star; Centre and soul of every sphere, Yet to each loving heart how near!

    - Oliver Wendell Holmes
    ^9  The Professor at the Breakfast  Table,'A Sun-Day Hymn'.

  • The life that I have chosen gives me my full hours of enjoyment for the balance of my life. The sun will not rise, or set, without my notice, and thanks.

    -Winslow Homer
      Letter to his brother, Charles, 23 Feb.

  • I remember, I remember, The house where I was born, The little window where the sun Came peeping in at morn; He never came a wink too soon, Nor brought too long a day, But now, I often wish the night Had borne my breath away!

    -Honorius of Autun
      'I Remember'.

  • She stood breast high amid the corn, Clasped by the golden light of morn, Like the sweetheart of the sun, Who many a glowing kiss had won.

    -Honorius of Autun
      'Ruth'.

  • No sunno moon! No mornno noon No dawnno duskno proper time of day.

    -Honorius of Autun
      'No'.

  • Clunton and Clunbury, Clungunford and Clun, Are the quietest places Under the sun.

    - A(lfred) E(dward) Housman
      A Shropshire Lad, no.50, epigraph.

  • What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

    - (James Mercer) Langston Hughes
      'Dream Deferred'. Lorraine Hansberry used the phrase for the title of her play  A Raisin in the Sun (1959).

  • The brassy wood-pigeons Bubble their colourful voices, and the sun Rises upon a world well-tried and old.

    -Ted (Edward James) Hughes
      'Stealing Trout on a May Morning'.

  • She stands an instant in the sun Athwart her harsh land's red and green Hands of a serf, and warrior eyes Of some flame-sceptred Irish queen. † As if she does not care that life Has reft the jewels from her hair But grieves that menial needs and base Were those that left her palace bare.

    - Robin pseudonym of IrisGuiver Wilkinson Hyde
      The Godwits Fly, ch.23. This poem is an adaptation of 'The Farmer's Wife', first published in The Desolate Star (1929).

  • Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness, Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun; Conspiring with him how to load and bless With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eaves run.

    -John Keats
      Lamia, Isabella, The Eve of St.  Agnes and Other Poems,'To Autumn', stanza1.

  • Awake my soul, and with the sun Thy daily stage of duty run.

    -Thomas Ken
      Manual of Prayers for the use of the Scholars of  Winchester College.

  •    When the flush of a new-born sun fell first on Eden's green and gold, Our father Adamsat under theTree and scratched with a stick in the mould; And the first rude sketch that the world had seen was joy to his mighty heart, Till the Devilwhispered behind theleaves,'It'spretty, but is it Art?'

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      'The Conundrum of the Workshops'.

  • There lived a Parsee from whose hat the rays of the sun were reflected in more-than-oriental splendour.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Just So Stories,'How the Rhinoceros Got His Skin'.

  • Of all the trees that grow so fair, Old England to adorn, Greater are none beneath the Sun, Than Oak, and Ash, and Thorn.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Puck of Pook's Hill,'Tree Song'.

  • Teach us delight in simple things And mirth that has no bitter springs; Forgiveness free of evil done, And love to all men 'neath the sun!

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Puck of Pook's Hill,'Children's Song'.

  • It's north you may run to the rime-ringed sun, Or south to the blind Horn's hate; Or east all the way into Mississippi Bay, Or west to the Golden Gate.

    - (Joseph) Rudyard Kipling
      Twenty Poems,'The Long Trail'.

  • When the sun shall be darkened, when the stars shall be thrown down, when the mountains shall be set moving, when the pregnant camels shall be neglected, when the savage beasts shall be mustered, when the seas shall be set boiling, when the souls shall be coupled, when the buried infant shall be asked for what sin she was slain, when the scrolls shall be unrolled, when heaven shall be stripped off, when Hell shall be set blazing, when Paradise shall be brought nigh, then shall a soul know what it has produced.

    -The Koran
    Sura 81,1^14.

  • In a somer seson, whan softe was the sonne, I shoop me into shroudes as I a sheep were, In habite an heremite unholy of werkes, Went wide in this world wondres to here.

    -William Langland
    c.1377  Piers Plowman (B text), prologue, l.1^4. (shoop = got, shroudes = garments)

  • I thought of London spread out in the sun, Its postal districts packed like squares of wheat.

    - Philip Arthur Larkin
      'The Whitsun Weddings'.

  • Roamin' in the gloamin'on the bonnie banks o'Clyde. Roamin' in the gloamin' wae my lassie by my side. When the sun has gone to rest, That's the time that we love best O, it's lovely roamin' in the gloamin'!

    - Sir Harry (Hugh MacLennan) Lauder
      'Roamin' in the Gloamin', chorus.

  • Andthesunsankagainonthegrand Australianbushthe nurseandtutorofeccentric minds, thehome oftheweird, and of much that is different from things in other lands.

    - Henry Hertzberg Lawson
      'The Bush Undertaker', first published in The Antipodean.

  • Astronomy teaches the correct use of the sun and the planets.

    - Stephen Butler Leacock
      Literary Lapses,'A Manual of Education'.

  • Igreet you as the advanceguard of the world proletarian army. The hour is not far off when†the German people will turn their weapons againsttheircapitalist exploiters. The sun of the socialist revolution has already risen.

    -Vladimir Ilyich originally Vladimir IlyichUlyanov Lenin
      Speech, Petrograd,16  Apr.

  • Pray for the grace of accuracy Vermeer gave to the sun's illumination stealing like the tide across a map to his girl solid with yearning.

    - RobertTraill Spence,Jr Lowell
      Day by Day,'Epilogue'.

  • The first time ever I saw your face I thought the sun rose in your eyes, And the moon and the stars were the gifts you gave To the dark and the empty skies.

    - EwanJames Miller MacColl
      'The First Time Ever I SawYour Face', stanza1.

  • The cowboys had lived for months under the great bowl of the sky, and yet the Montana skies seemed deeper than the skies of Texas or Nebraska. Their depth and blueness robbed even the sun of its harsh forceit seemed smaller, in the vastness, and the whole sky no longer turned white at noon as it had in the lower plains. Always, somewhere to the north, there was a swath of blueness, with white cloads floating in it like petals in a pond. 537

    - LarryJeff McMurtry
      Lonesome Dove, ch.93.

  • Let us roll all our strength, and all Our sweetness, up into one ball: And tear our pleasures with rough strife, Through the iron gates of life. Thus, though we cannot make our sun Stand still, yet we will make him run.

    - Andrew Marvell
    c.1650^1652  'To His Coy Mistress' (published1681), closing lines.

  • Away with systems! Away with a corrupt world! Let us breathe the air of the Enchanted island.Golden lie the meadows; golden run the streams; red gold is on the pine-stems. The sun's coming down to earth, and walks the fields and the waters. The sun is coming down to earth, and the fields and the waters shout to him golden shouts.

    - George Meredith
      The Ordeal of Richard Feverel, ch.19.

  • It was the winter wild While the Heaven born child All meanly wrapped in the rude manger lies; Nature in awe to him Had doffed her gaudy trim With her great Master so to sympathize; It was no season then for her To wanton with the sun, her lusty paramour.

    -John Milton
      'On the Morning of Christ's Nativity','The Hymn', stanza 3.

  • Virtue could see to do what Virtue would By her own radiant light, though sun and moon Were in the flat sea sunk. And Wisdom's self Oft seeks to sweet retired solitude, Where with her best nurse contemplation She plumes her feathers, and lets grow her wings That in the various bustle of resort Were all too ruffl'd, and sometimes impair'd. He that has light within his own clear breast May sit i'the centre, and enjoy bright day, But he that hides a dark soul, and foul thoughts Benighted walks under the midday sun; Himself is his own dungeon.

    -John Milton
      Comus,  A Mask, l.372^83.

  •    To think of playing cricket for hard cash! Money and gentility would ruin any pastime under the sun.

    - Mary Russell Mitford
      Letter to R B Haydon, 24  Aug.

  • Woke up, it was a Chelsea morning, and the first thing that I knew There was milk and toast and honey and a bowl of oranges, too. And the sun poured in like butterscotch and stuck to all my senses.

    -Joni (RobertaJoan) ne  e  Anderson Mitchell
      'Chelsea Morning'.

  • One evening,Iwas walking along a path, the city was on one side and the fjord below. I felt tired and ill. I stopped and looked out over the fjordthe sun was setting, and the clouds turning blood red.I sensed a scream passing through nature; it seemed to me that I heard the scream. Ipainted this picture, paintedthe cloudsas actual blood. The colour shrieked. This becameThe Scream.

    - Edvard Munch
      Diary.

  • His Majesty's dominions, on which the sun never sets.

    - Christopher pseudonym of  JohnWilson North
      'Noctes  Ambrosianae', no.42, in Blackwood's Magazine, Apr.

  • That my old bitter heart was pierced in this black doom, That foreign devils have made our land a tomb, That the sun that was Munster's glory has gone down Has made me a beggar before you,Valentine Brown.

    - Egan Gaelic name  Aodhaga  n OŁ   Rathaille O'Rahilly
    'Valentine Brown', translated from the Irish by Michael O'Donovan (pseudonym Frank O'Connor).

  • The atom bombs are piling up in the factories, the police are prowling through the cities, the lies are streaming from the loudspeakers, but the earth is still going round the sun, and neither the dictators nor the bureaucrats, deeplyas they disapprove of the process, are able to prevent it.

    - George pseudonym of  Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
      'Some Thoughts on the Common Toad'.

  • Move him into the sun Gently its touch awoke him once, At home, whispering of fields unsown.

    -Wilfred Owen
      'Futility', collected in Poems (published1920).

  • If anything might rouse him now The kind old sun will know.

    -Wilfred Owen
      'Futility', collected in Poems (published1920).

  • Why should not the name of an Australian be equal to that of a Briton†to that of a citizen of the proudest country under the sun? Make yourselves a united people, appear before the world as one, and the dream of going 'home' will die away.

    - Sir Henry Parkes
      Speech to theAustralian Federation Conference, Feb.

  •    Your anger was a climate I inhabited like a desert in a dry frigid weather of high thin air and ivory sun, sand dunes the wind lifted into stinging clouds that blinded and choked me where the only ice was in the blood.

    - Marge Piercy
      Stone, Paper, Knife,'TheWeight'.

  • Bright as the sun, her eyes the gazers strike, And, like the sun, they shine on all alike.

    - Alexander Pope
      The Rape of the Lock, canto 2, l.13^14.

  • Bah! I have sung women in three cities, But it is all the same; And I will sing of the sun.

    - Ezra Loomis Pound
      Personae,'Cino'.

  •    What is our life? a play of passion; Our mirth the music of division; Our mothers' wombs the tiring-houses be Where we are dressed for this short comedy. Heaven the judicious sharp spectator is, That sits and marks still who doth act amiss; Our graves that hide us from the searching sun Are like drawn curtains when the play is done. Thus march we, playing, to our latest rest, Only we die in earnestthat's no jest.

    - Sir Walter Raleigh
      'On the Life of Man'.

  • I saw dawn upon them like the sun a vision of a time when all men walk proudly through the earth and the bombs and missiles lie at the bottom of the ocean like the bones of dinosaurs buried under the shale of eras.

    - Dudley Randall
      Cities Burning,'Roses and Revolutions'.

  • Praise the sports of the land And water, each one The bath by the beach, or the yacht on the sea But of all the sweet pleasures Known under the sun; A good game of Croquet's the sweetest to me.

    -Thomas Mayne Reid
      Quoted in Colin Jarman The Guinness Dictionary of Sports Quotations (1990).

  • We will watch the sun set againmany times, and perhaps we'll see the Emerald Drop, the green flash that brings good fortune.

    -Jean pseudonym of  Ellen Gwendolen Rees Williams Rhys
      Wide Sargasso Sea, pt.2.

  • Elle est retrouve  e. Quoi?L'EŁ  ternite  . C'est la mer alle  e Avec le soleil. It has been recovered. What?Eternity. It is the sea escaping With the sun.

    - (Jean Nicolas) Arthur Rimbaud
      Derniers vers, Fe"  tes de la patience,'L'EŁ   ternite ' .

  • The country habit has me by the heart, For he's bewitched for ever who has seen, Not with his eyes but with his vision, Spring Flow down the woods and stipple leaves with sun.

    -Vita (Victoria Mary) Sackville-West
      The Land,'Winter'.

  • Hidden in wonder and snow, or sudden with summer, This land stares at the sun in a huge silence Endlessly repeating something we cannot hear. Inarticulate, arctic, Not written on by history, emptyas paper, It leans away from the world with songs in its lakes Older than love, and lost in the miles. 722

    - F(rancis) R(eginald) Scott
      Of Canada.'Laurentian Shield'.

  • Ah! County Guy, the hour is nigh, The sun has left the lea, The orange flower perfumes the bower, The breeze is on the sea.

    - Sir Walter Scott
      Quentin Durward, ch.4.

  • Mont Blanc yet gleams on high: the power is there, The still and solemn power of many sights And many sounds, and much of life and death. In the long glare of day, the snows descend Upon that Mountain; none beholds them there, Nor when the flakes burn in the sinking sun, Or the sunbeams dart through them.

    - Percy Bysshe Shelley
      'Mont Blanc'.

  • I open with a clock striking, to beget an awful attention in the audience: it also marks the time, which is four o'clock in the morning, and saves a description of the rising sun, and a great deal about gilding the eastern hemisphere. 788

    - Richard Brinsley Sheridan
      Mr Puff, of his tragedy 'The Spanish Armada'.The Critic, act 2, sc.2.

  • When I was a boy the Sioux owned the world; the sun roseand set on their land; they sent ten thousand men to battle.Where are the warriors today? Who slew them? Where are our lands? Who owns them?† What law have I broken? Is it wrong for me to love my own? Is it wicked for me because my skin is red? Because I am a Sioux; because I was born where my father lived; because I would die for my country?

    -Sitting Bull real name Tatanka Iyotake
    c.1866  Quoted inT C McLuhan Touch the Earth (1973).

  • For he counteracts the powers of darkness by his electrical skin and glaring eyes. For he counteracts the Devil, who is death, by brisking about the life. For in his morning orisons he loves the sun and the sun loves him. For he is of the tribe of Tiger.

    - Christopher Smart
    ^63  Of his cat Jeoffry. JubilateAgno, fragment B, l.719^22. (First published1939.)

  • Thank heavens, the sun has gone in, and I don't have to go out and enjoy it.

    - Logan Pearsall Smith
    Afterthoughts,'Myself'.

  • Shall I tell you the signs of a New Age coming? It is a sound of drubbing and sobbing Of people crying,We are old, we are old And the sun isgoing down and becoming cold.

    - Stevie (Florence Margaret) Smith
      NotWaving but Drowning,'The NewAge'.

  • It was a summer evening, Old Kasper's work was done, And he before his cottage door Was sitting in the sun, And by him sported on the green His little grandchild Wilhelmine.

    - Robert Southey
      'The Battle of Blenheim'.

  • The names of those who in their lives fought for life, Who wore at their hearts the fire's centre. Born of the sun they travelled a short while towards the sun, And left the vivid air signed with their honour.

    - Sir Stephen Harold Spender
      'I Think Continually ofThose'.

  • My tea is nearly ready and the sun has left the sky; It's time to take the window to see Leerie going by; Foreverynight attea-timeand before youtakeyourseat, With lantern and with ladder he comes posting up the street.

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      A Child's Garden ofVerses, no.30,'The Lamplighter', stanza1.

  • Blows the wind to-day, and the sun and the rain are flying, Blows the wind on the moors to-dayand now, Where about the graves of the martyrs the whaups are crying, My heart remembers how!

    - Robert Louis Stevenson
      Songs ofTravel (published1896), no.45,'To S.R. Crockett (in reply to a dedication)', stanza1.

  • To-day I find from my observations of the sun†that I am now camped in the centre of Australia. I have marked a tree and planted the British flag there. There is a high mount about two miles and a half to the north-north- east.Iwish it had been inthe centre; but on itto-morrow I will raise a cone of stones, and plant the flag there, and name it 'Central Mount Stuart'.

    -John McDouall Stuart
      Journalentry, 22 Apr. Onreaching the centre of Australia, at Small Gum Creek. Collected inW. Hardman (ed) Journals ofJohn McDou'all Stuart during theYears1858,1859,1860,1861and1862.

  • IT'S THE SUN WOT WON IT

    -The Sun
      Headline,11 Apr, after the general election victory by the Conservatives.

  • Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green, Or where his beams may not dissolve the ice, In temperate heat, where he is felt and seen, With proud people, in presence sad and wise; Set me in base, or yet in high degree, In the long night, or in the shortest day, In clear weather, or where mists thickest be, In lusty youth, or when my hairs be grey† Yours will I be, and with that only thought Comfort myself when that my hap is nought.

    - Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
    'Set me whereas the sun doth parch the green'.

  • The sun has gane down o'er the lofty Benlomond, And left the red clouds to preside o'er the scene, While lanely I stray, in the calm simmer gloamin', To muse on sweet Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane. How sweet is the brier wi' its saft faulding blossom, And sweet is the birk, wi' its mantle o'green; Yet sweeter, and fairer, and dear to this bosom, Is lovely young Jessie, the flower o' Dunblane.

    - Robert Tannahill
      'Jessie, the Flower o' Dunblane', stanza1.

  • A bow-shot from her bower-eaves, He rode between the barley-sheaves, The sun came dazzling through the leaves, And flamed upon the brazen greaves Of bold Sir Lancelot. A red-cross knight forever kneeled To a lady in his shield, That sparkled on the yellow field, Beside remote Shalott.

    -Tennyson
      Poems,'The Lady of Shalott' (revised1842), pt.3, l.73^81.

  • He clasps the crag with crooked hands; Close to the sun in lonely lands, Ringed with the azure world, he stands. The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls; He watches from his mountain walls, And like a thunderbolt he falls.

    -Tennyson
      'The Eagle', complete poem.

  • Rain, rain, and sun! a rainbow in the sky! Ayoung man will be wiser byand by; An old man's wit may wander ere he die.

    -Tennyson
      Idylls of the King,'The Coming of Arthur', l.402^4.

  • And the sun went down, and the stars came out far over the summer sea, But never a moment ceased the fight of the one and the fifty-three.

    -Tennyson
      'The Revenge', stanza 9, l.56^7.

  • Light breaks where no sun shines; Where no sea runs, the waters of the heart Push in their tides.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      'Light BreaksWhere No Sun Shines'.

  • And before you let the sun in, mind it wipes its shoes.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Under MilkWood.

  • The sun hums down through the cotton flowers of her dress into the bell of her heart and buzzes in the honey there and couches and kisses, lazy-loving and boozed, in her red-berried breast.

    - Dylan Marlais Thomas
      Under MilkWood.

  •    Jesus shall reign where'er the sun Does his successive journeys run; His kingdom stretch from shore to shore, Till moons shall wax and wane no more.

    - Isaac Watts
      The Psalms of David Imitated, Psalm 72.

  • It was the best place to be, thought Wilbur, this warm delicious cellar, with the garrulous geese, the changing seasons, the heat of the sun, the passage of swallows, the nearness of rats, the sameness of sheep, the love of spiders, the smell of manure, and the glory of everything.

    - E(lwyn) B(rooks) White
      Charlotte'sWeb, ch.22.

  • We have†fought for our place in the sun and have won it.It will be my business to seethat we retain this place in the sun unchallenged.

    - Kaiser Wilhelm II
    Speech in Hamburg,18 Jun. Quoted in TheTimes, 20 Jun.

  • Life itself, every moment of it, every drop of it, here, this instant, now, in the sun, in Regent's Park, was enough. Too much, indeed.

    - (Adeline) Virginia ne  e Stephen Woolf
      Mrs Dalloway.

  • Three years she grew in sun and shower, 924 The Nature said,'A lovelier flower On earth was never sown; This Child I to myself will take; She shall be mine, and I will make A Lady of my own.'

    -William Wordsworth
      'ThreeYears she grew in sun and shower', stanza1 (published1800).

  • It is a beauteous evening, calm and free, The holy time is quiet as a nun Breathless with adoration; the broad sun Is sinking down in its tranquillity; The gentleness of heaven broods o'er the sea: Listen! the mighty being is awake, And doth with his eternal motion make A sound like thundereverlastingly.

    -William Wordsworth
      'It is a beauteous evening calm and free', l.1^8 (published 1807).

  • Earth hath not anything to show more fair: Dull would he be of soul who could pass by A sight so touching in its majesty: This City now doth like a garment wear The beauty of the morning; silent, bare, Ships, towers, domes, theatres, and to the sky; All bright and glittering in the smokeless air. Never did sun more beautifully steep In his first splendour, valley, rock, or hill; Ne'er saw I, never felt, a calm so deep! The river glideth at his own sweet will; Dear God! the very houses seem asleep; And all that mighty heart is lying still!

    -William Wordsworth
      Of London.'Composed uponWestminster Bridge', complete poem. (Published1807).

  • What soul was his, when, from the naked top Of some bold headland, he beheld the sun Rise up, and bathe the world in light! He looked Ocean and earth, the solid frame of earth And ocean's liquid mass, in gladness lay Beneath him:Far and wide the clouds were touched, And in their silent faces he could read Unutterable love.

    -William Wordsworth
      'The Excursion', bk.1, l.198^205.

  • And walk among long dappled grass, And pluck till time and times are done The silver apples of the moon, The golden apples of the sun.

    -W(illiam) B(utler) Yeats
      'The Song of Wandering Aengus', l.21^4. Collected in The Wind Among the Reeds (1899).

Webster's New World Dictionary of Quotations Copyright © 2010 by Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. Published by Wiley, Hoboken, NJ. Used by arrangement with John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

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