Sundial Inscription Examples

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Sundial Inscriptions

We can engrave the sundial with your own personal inscription.

Below are samples but the content can be entirely your own.

You may want to combine a personal message on one side of the sundial and a Latin phrase on the other.

We will be pleased to help you create an inscription and its layout.

Popular Sundial Inscriptions:

Amor vincit omnia - Love conquers all

Carpe diem - Seize the day. (opportunity) (Horace)

Cogita ante salis - look before you leap

Credidi me felem vidisse! - I tought I taw a puddy tat!

Cum homine de cane debeo congredi - Excuse me. I've got to see a man about a dog

Dies natalis - Birthday

Habetis bona deum - Have a nice day

Me transmitte sursum, caledoni! - Beam me up, Scotty!

Melius tarde, quam nunquam - Better late than never

Ubi bene, ibi patria - Where you feel good, there is your home

Ut sementem feceris, ita metes - As you sow, so shall you reap. (Cicero)

A day may prime thee, improve this hour.

Moved by the light.

A stick in time saves mine.

On this moment hangs eternity.

To thee that mourn the hours are slow

But with joyful swiftly go.

The gliding hour flies on its fitful wings.

Come boys now's the hour.

Learn ze, years pass by like running water.

Snatch the present hour, fear the last.

As a shadow such is life.

Look at me and pass on.

By the shadow shall I mark time.

Be thankful, watch, pray and work.

The sun who guides the heavenly bodies produces the shade.

Come light visit me.

Count all the hours lost which are not accompanied by some worthy deed.

With the shadow nothing, without the shadow nothing.

To God alone be the glory.

Learn to live and die well.

The Lord is my light.

Perhaps the last.

Go your way into His courts with thanksgiving.

Let the slight shadow teach thee wisdom

Evil be to him who thinks evil thereof.

I count bright hours only.

I tell only sunny hours.

I am a shadow, so art thou,

I mark the time, dost thou?

Amidst the flowers I tell the hours.

The clock the time may wrongly tell,

I never if the sun shines well.

Time flies, eternity draws near.

Lead kindly light.

Let not the sun go down on your wrath.

Let others tell of storms and showers,

I tell only sunny hours.

Light is the shadow of God.

Night comes when no man can work.

Like a true fireman, I am always ready.

He hath made his choice aright,

who counted but the hours of light.

Till the day dawn and the shadows flee away.

My time is in thy hand.

Man wants but little here below,

nor wants that little wrong.

Only as I abide in the light of heaven do I fulfil the will of my maker.

They pass by and are scorned.

So passes the glory of the world.

The sun guides me the shadows gone.

Tak tent o'time, ere time be tint.

Time passes as a shadow.

Time flies, death urges, knells call, heaven invites.

With warning hand I mark times rapid flight,

From life's glad morning to its solemn night.

Yet through the dear God's love, I also show,

There's light above me by the shade below.

When thou dost look upon my face,

To learn the time of day:

Think how my shadow keeps its pace,

As thy life flies away.

Take, mortal this advice from me

And so resolve to spend

They life on earth, that heaven shall be

Thy home when time shall end.

I stand amid the summer flowers

To tell the passage of the hours.

When winter steals the flowers away

I tell the passing of their day.

Man whose flesh is but as grass

Like summer flowers thy life shall pass

While time is thine lay up in store

And thou shalt live for evermore.

verses by Hilaire Belloc

To end up in the wrong direction, these verses by Hilaire Belloc have probably not been used on actual sundials, but express some of the problems and indeed pathos of the sundials!

In soft deluding lies let foools delight.

A shadow marks our days, which end in Night

How slow the Shadow creeps; but when 'tis past

How fast the Shadows fall. How fast! How fast!

Loss and Possession, Death and Life are one.

There falls no shadow where there shines no sun.

Stealthy the silent hours advance, and still;

And each may wound you, and the last shall kill.

Here in a lonely glade, forgotten, I

Mark the tremendous process of the sky.

So does your inmost soul, forgotten, mark

The Dawn, the Noon, the coming of the Dark.

I that sitll point to one enduring star

Abandoned am, as all the Constant are.

Save on the rare occasions when the Sun

Is shining, I am only here for fun

I am a sundial, and I make a botch

Of what is done far better by a watch.

I am a sundial, turned the wrong way round.

I cost my foolish mistress fifty pounds

We have many other sundial inscriptions available!