CALVIN: Isn’t it sad how some people’s grip on their lives is so precarious that they’ll embrace any preposterous delusion, rather than face an occasional bleak truth?
Bill Watterson (b. 1958) American cartoonist
Calvin and Hobbes (1987-11-24)
(Source)
Ironically, the "preposterous delusion" is his father's assertion that the weather is getting colder, not (as Calvin surmises) because the Sun is going out, but because the Earth's orbit is heading toward aphelion, its furthest from the Sun. More ironically, that explanation is actually incorrect. Winter and summer are driven by Earth's axial tilt, and perihelion (Earth being closest to the Sun in its orbit) occurs in early January, which is winter in the Northern Hemisphere.
Quotations about:
sun
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
The sun rose slowly, as if it wasn’t sure it was worth all the effort.
Terry Pratchett (1948-2015) English author
Discworld No. 2, The Light Fantastic (1986)
(Source)
Opening words.
We must be content with the light that it may please the sun to shed upon us by his beams; and he who shall raise his eyes to bring a brighter beam into his very body, let him not think it strange if, for the punishment of his audacity, he thus lose his sight.
[Il se faut contenter de la lumiere qu’il plaist au Soleil nous communiquer par ses rayons, & qui eslevera ses yeux pour en prendre une plus grande dans son corps mesme, qu’il ne trouve pas estrange, si pour la peine de son outrecuidance il y perd la veuë.]
Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592) French essayist
Essays, Book 1, ch. 31 (1.31), “That a Man Is Soberly to Judge of the Divine Ordinance [Qu’il faut sobrement se mesler de juger des ordonnances divines] (1572) [tr. Ives (1925), ch. 32]
(Source)
On discerning God's will.
This passage of this essay was in the 1st (1580) edition.
(Source (French)). Alternate translations:A man should be satisfied with the light, which it pleaseth the Sunne to communicate unto us by vertue of his beames; and he that shall lift up his eyes to take a greater within his bodie, let him not thinke it strange, if for a reward of his over-weening and arrogancie he loose his sight.
[tr. Florio (1603)]We are to content ourselves with the light it pleases the sun to communicate to us, by virtue of his rays, and he that will lift up his eyes to take in a greater, let him not think it strange if, for the punishment of his presumption, he thereby lose his sight.
[tr. Cotton (1686)]We are to content ourselves with the light it pleases the sun to communicate to us, by virtue of his rays; and who will lift up his eyes to take in a greater, let him not think it strange, if for the reward of his presumption, he there lose his sight.
[tr. Cotton/Hazlitt (1877)]We must be content with the light that it pleases the sun to communicate to us by its rays; and if anyone raises his eyes to gain a greater light from its very body, let him not find it strange if as a penalty for his presumption he loses his sight.
[tr. Frame (1943), 1.32]We must be content with the light which the Sun vouchsafes to shed on us by its rays: were a man to lift up his eyes to seek a greater light in the Sun itself, let him not find it strange if he is blinded as a penalty for his presumption.
[tr. Screech (1987), 1.32]
It always is wretched weather, according to us. The weather is like the Government, always in the wrong. In summer time we say it is stifling; in winter that it is killing; in spring and autumn we find fault with it for being neither one thing nor the other, and wish it would make up its mind. If it is fine, we say the country is being ruined for want of rain; if it does rain, we pray for fine weather. If December passes without snow, we indignantly demand to know what has become of our good old-fashioned winters, and talk as if we had been cheated out of something we had bought and paid for; and when it does snow, our language is a disgrace to a Christian nation. We shall never be content until each man makes his own weather, and keeps it to himself.
If that cannot be arranged, we would rather do without it altogether.Jerome K. Jerome (1859-1927) English writer, humorist [Jerome Klapka Jerome]
Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, “On the Weather” (1886)
(Source)
First published in Home Chimes (1885-07-11).
You might just as well take the sun out of the sky as friendship from life; for the immortal gods have given us nothing better or more delightful.
[Solem enim e mundo tollere videntur ei, qui amicitiam e vita tollunt, qua nihil a dis immortalibus melius habemus, nihil iucundius.]
Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC) Roman orator, statesman, philosopher
Laelius De Amicitia [Laelius on Friendship], ch. 13 / sec. 47 (44 BC) [tr. Shuckburgh (1909)]
(Source)
Original Latin. Alternate translations:For they seem to take away the sun from the world who withdraw friendship from life; for we receive nothing better from the immortal gods, nothing more delightful.
[tr. Edmonds (1871)]It is like taking the sun out of the world, to bereave human life of friendship, than which the immortal gods have given man nothing better, nothing more gladdening.
[tr. Peabody (1887)]Why, they seem to take the sun out of the universe when they deprive life of friendship, than which we have from the immortal gods no better, no more delightful boon.
[tr. Falconer (1923)]For they seem to remove the sun from the Earth, these people who remove friendship from life, when we have received no better thing, no sweeter thing, from the immortal gods.
[Source]
Now down in the Ocean sank the fiery light of day,
drawing the dark night across the grain-giving earth.[Ἐν δ’ ἔπεσ’ Ὠκεανῷ λαμπρὸν φάος ἠελίοιο
ἕλκον νύκτα μέλαιναν ἐπὶ ζείδωρον ἄρουραν.]Homer (fl. 7th-8th C. BC) Greek author
The Iliad [Ἰλιάς], Book 8, l. 485ff (8.485-486) (c. 750 BC) [tr. Fagles (1990)]
(Source (Greek)). Alternate translations:And now Sol’s glorious light
Fell to the sea, and to the land drew up the drowsy night.
[tr. Chapman (1611), ll. 426-27]Now deep in ocean sunk the lamp of light,
And drew behind the cloudy veil of night.
[tr. Pope (1715-20)]And now the radiant Sun in Ocean sank,
Drawing night after him o’er all the earth.
[tr. Cowper (1791)]And the bright light of the sun fell into the ocean, drawing dark night over the fruitful earth.
[tr. Buckley (1860)]The sun, now sunk beneath the ocean wave,
Drew o’er the teeming earth the veil of night.
[tr. Derby (1864)]And the sul’s bright light dropped into Ocean, drawing black night across Earth the grain-giver.
[tr. Leaf/Lang/Myers (1891)]The sun's glorious orb now sank into Oceanus and drew down night over the land.
[tr. Butler (1898)]Then into Oceanus fell the bright light of the sun
drawing black night over the face of the earth, the giver of grain.
[tr. Murray (1924)]And now the shining light of the sun was dipped in the Ocean trailing black night across the grain-giving land.
[tr. Lattimore (1951)]Now in the western Ocean the shining sun dipped,
drawing dark night on over the kind grainbearing earth.
[tr. Fitzgerald (1974)]Helios' radiant sunlight then fell into the Ocean,
drawing the black night over the grain-giving land.
[tr. Merrill (2007)]
