Many sundials bear a motto[a] to reflect the sentiments of its maker or owner.
A sundial on a gravestone in Kilbirnie Auld Kirk, Kilbirnie, Ayrshire, Scotland. The motto at top reads, "Life is but a passing shadow, the shadow of a bird on the wing."
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.[1]
Hours fly, Flowers die. New days, New ways, Pass by. Love stays.[2]
Hours fly, Flowers bloom and die. Old days, Old ways pass. Love stays.
I only tell of sunny hours.
I count only sunny hours.
The clouds shall pass and the sun will shine on us once more.
Let others tell of storms and showers, I tell of sunny morning hours.
Let others tell of storms and showers, I'll only count your sunny hours. Has date of 1767
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.[3][4]
Time, like an ever-rolling stream, bears all its sons away.[4][5]
Tempus vincit omnia. (Time conquers everything.)[11]
Vidi nihil permanere sub sole. (I have seen that nothing under the sun endures.)[11][15]
Virtue
Dum tempus habemus operemur bonum. (While we have time, let us do good.)[11]
Omnes æquales sola virtute discrepantes. (All [hours] are the same; they are distinguished only by virtue.)[11]
Living
Horace's Dona præsentis cape lætus horæ ac linque severe on the Villa Vizcaya, Miami, FloridaVita in motu on one of the sundials (right) at Houghton Hall, Norfolk, England
Amicis qualibet hora. (Any hour for my friends.)[11]
Dona præsentis cape lætus horæ [ac linque severe]. (Take the gifts of this hour joyfully [and leave them sternly].)[11][16]