Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Day
Listen to the Exhortation of the Dawn!
Look to this Day! For it is Life,
The very Life of Life.
In its brief course lie all the Varieties
And Realities of your Existence;
The Bliss of Growth,
The Glory of Action,
The Splendor of Beauty;
For Yesterday is but a Dream,
And Tomorrow is only a Vision;
But Today well lived
Makes every Yesterday a Dream of Happiness,
And every Tomorrow a Vision of Hope.
Look well therefore to this Day!
Such is the Salutation of the Dawn.
Salutation of the Dawn. From the Sanscrit.
Day is a snow-white Dove of heaven
That from the East glad message brings.
T. B. Aldrich—Day and Night.
The long days are no happier than the short ones.
Bailey—Festus. Sc. A Village Feast. Evening.
Virtus sui gloria.
Think that day lost whose (low) descending sun
Views from thy hand no noble action done.
Jacob Bobart—In David Krieg’s Album in British Museum. Dec. 8, 1697. (See also Staniford—Art of Reading. 3d Ed. P. 27. [1803].)
From fibers of pain and hope and trouble
And toil and happiness,—one by one,—
Twisted together, or single or double,
The varying thread of our life is spun.
Hope shall cheer though the chain be galling;
Light shall come though the gloom be falling;
Faith will list for the Master calling
Our hearts to his rest,—when the day is done.
A. B. Bragdon—When the Day is done.
Yet, behind the night,
Waits for the great unborn, somewhere afar,
Some white tremendous daybreak.
Rupert Brooke—Second Best.
Day!
Faster and more fast,
O’er night’s brim, day boils at last;
Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim.
Robert Browning—Introduction to Pippa Passes.
Is not every meanest day the confluence of two eternities?
Carlyle—French Revolution. Pt. I. Bk. VI. Ch. V.
So here hath been dawning
Another blue day;
Think, wilt thou let it
Slip useless away?
Out of eternity
This new day is born,
Into eternity
At night will return.
Carlyle—To-day.
All comes out even at the end of the day.
Quoted by Winston Churchill. Speech at the Highbury Athenæum, Nov. 23, 1910.
Dies iræ, dies illa!
Solvet sæclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sybilla.
Day of wrath that day of burning,
Seer and Sibyl speak concerning,
All the world to ashes turning.
Attributed to Thomas Celano. See Daniel—Thesaurus Hymnology. Vol. II. P. 103. Printed in Missale Romanum. Pavia. (1491). Trans. by Abraham Coles. Nolker, monk of St. Gall (about 880) says he saw the lines in a book belonging to the Convent of St. Jumièges. Assigned to Cardinal Frangipani (“Malabrancia”), died, 1294. Also to St. Gregory, St. Bernard, Cardinal Orsini, Agnostino Biella, Humbertus. See Dublin Review, No. 39.
Beware of desperate steps. The darkest day,
Live till to-morrow, will have pass’d away.
Cowper—Needless Alarm. L. 132.
Days, that need borrow
No part of their good morrow
From a fore-spent night of sorrow.
Richard Crashaw—Wishes to His Supposed Mistress.
Daughters of Time, the hypocrite Days,
Muffled and dumb like barefoot dervishes,
And marching single in an endless file,
Bring diadems and fagots in their hands;
To each they offer gifts after his will,
Bread, kingdom, stars, and sky that holds them all;
I, in my pleachéd garden watched the pomp
Forgot my morning wishes, hastily
Took a few herbs and apples, and the Day
Turned and departed silent. I too late
Under her solemn fillet saw the scorn.
Emerson—Days.
The days are ever divine as to the first Aryans. They are of the least pretension, and of the greatest capacity of anything that exists. They come and go like muffled and veiled figures sent from a distant friendly party; but they say nothing, and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry them as silently away.
Emerson—Works and Days.
After the day there cometh the derke night;
For though the day be never so longe,
At last the belles ringeth to evensonge.
Stephen Hawes—Pastime of Pleasure. (1517). As given in Percy Society Ed. Ch. XLII. P. 207. Also in the Maskell books. British Museum (1578). An old hymn found among the marginal rhymes of a Book of Prayers of Queen Elizabeth, to accompany illuminations of The Triumph of Death. Hawes probably used the idea found in an old Latin hymn.
Quantumvis cursum longum fessumque moratur
Sol, sacro tandem carmine Vesper adest.
English of these lines quoted at the stake by George Tankerfield (1555). Same in Heywood. Dialogue Concerning English Proverbs. See also Foxe—Acts and Monuments. Vol. VII. P. 346. Ed. 1828.
The better day, the worse deed.
Matthew Henry—Commentaries. Genesis III.
Sweet day, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
The dew shall weep thy fall to-night;
For thou must die.
Herbert—The Temple. Virtue.
I think the better day, the better deed.
Chief Justice Holt, Judgment, Reports, 1028. Ascribed to Walker in Woods Dict. of Quotations. Thos. Middleton—The Phœnix. Act III. Sc. 1.
Truditur dies die,
Novæque pergunt interire lunæ.
Day is pushed out by day, and each new moon hastens to its death.
Horace—Carmina. Bk. II. 18. 15.
Cressa ne careat pulchra dies nota.
Let not a day so fair be without its white chalk mark.
Horace—Carmina. Bk. I. 36. 10.
Inter spem curamque, timores inter et iras,
Omnem crede diem tibi diluxisse supremum:
Grata superveniet, quæ non sperabitur, hora.
In the midst of hope and anxiety, in the midst of fear and anger, believe every day that has dawned to be your last; happiness which comes unexpected will be the more welcome.
Horace—Epistles. Bk. I. 4. 13.
Creta an carbone notandi?
To be marked with white chalk or charcoal? (i.e. good or bad.)
Horace—Satires. Bk. II. 3. 246.
O sweet, delusive Noon,
Which the morning climbs to find,
O moment sped too soon,
And morning left behind.
Helen Hunt Jackson—Verses. Noon.
Well, this is the end of a perfect day,
Near the end of a journey, too;
But it leaves a thought that is big and strong,
With a wish that is kind and true.
For mem’ry has painted this perfect day
With colors that never fade,
And we find at the end of a perfect day,
The soul of a friend we’ve made.
Carrie Jacobs-Bond—A Perfect Day.
Car il n’est si beau jour qui n’amène sa nuit.
For there is no day however beautiful that is not followed by night.
On the tombstone of Jean d’Orbesan at Padua.
My days are swifter than a weaver’s shuttle.
Job. VII. 6.
Clearer than the noonday.
Job. XI. 17.
Days should speak and multitude of years should teach wisdom.
Job. XXXII. 7.
Out of the shadows of night,
The world rolls into light;
It is daybreak everywhere.
Longfellow—Bells of San Blas.
O summer day beside the joyous sea!
O summer day so wonderful and white,
So full of gladness and so full of pain!
Forever and forever shalt thou be
To some the gravestone of a dead delight,
To some the landmark of a new domain.
Longfellow—Summer Day by the Sea.
Hide me from day’s garish eye.
Milton—Il Penseroso. L. 141.
How troublesome is day!
It calls us from our sleep away;
It bids us from our pleasant dreams awake,
And sends us forth to keep or break
Our promises to pay.
How troublesome is day!
Thomas Love Peacock—Fly-by-Night. Paper Money Lyrics.
Jusqu’au cercuil (mon fils) vueilles apprendre,
Et tien perdu le jour qui s’est passe,
Si tu n’y as quelque chose ammasse,
Pour plus scavant et plus sage te rendre.
Cease not to learn until thou cease to live;
Think that day lost wherein thou draw’st no letter,
To make thyself learneder, wiser, better.
Guy de Faur Pibrac—Collections of Quatrains, No. 31. Trans. by Joshua Sylvester. (About 1608). Reprinted by M. A. Lemerre. (1874).
O diem lætum, notandumque mihi candidissimo calculo.
O happy day, and one to be marked for me with the whitest of chalk.
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. VI. 11.
Longissimus dies cito conditur.
The longest day soon comes to an end.
Pliny the Younger—Epistles. IX. 36.
Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.
Proverbs. XXVII. 1.
Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge.
Psalms. XIX. 2.
Sweet Phosphor, bring the day!
Light will repay
The wrongs of night; sweet Phosphor, bring the day!
Quarles—Emblems. Bk. I. Em. 14. St. 5.
We met, hand to hand,
We clasped hands close and fast,
As close as oak and ivy stand;
But it is past:
Come day, come night, day comes at last.
Christina G. Rossetti—Twilight. Night. I. St. 1.
Die schönen Tage in Aranjuez
Sind nun zu Ende.
The lovely days in Aranjuez are now at an end.
Schiller—Don Carlos. I. 1. 1.
O, such a day,
So fought, so follow’d and so fairly won.
Henry IV. Pt. II. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 20.
What hath this day deserv’d? what hath it done,
That it in golden letters should be set
Among the high tides in the calendar?
King John. Act III. Sc. 1. L. 84.
The sun is in the heaven, and the proud day,
Attended with the pleasures of the world,
Is all too wanton.
King John. Act III. Sc. 3. L. 34.
Day is the Child of Time,
And Day must cease to be:
But Night is without a sire,
And cannot expire,
One with Eternity.
R. H. Stoddard—Day and Night.
Discipulus est priori posterior dies.
Each day is the scholar of yesterday.
Syrus—Maxims.
But the tender grace of a day that is dead
Will never come back to me.
Tennyson—Break, Break, Break.
A life that leads melodious days.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. XXXIII. St. 2.
“A day for Gods to stoop,”***ay,
And men to soar.
Tennyson—The Lover’n Tale. L. 304.
Diem perdidi.
I have lost a day.
Titus. See Suetonius—Titus. VIII.
Expectada dies aderat.
The longed for day is at hand.
Vergil—Æneid. V. 104.
Mes jours s’en sont allez errant.
My days are gone a-wandering.
Villon—Grand Testament.
One of those heavenly days that cannot die.
Wordsworth—Nutting.
On all important time, thro’ ev’ry age,
Tho’ much, and warm, the wise have urged; the man
Is yet unborn, who duly weighs an hour,
“I’ve lost a day”—the prince who nobly cried
Had been an emperor without his crown;
Of Rome? say rather, lord of human race.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night II. L. 97.
The spirit walks of every day deceased.
Young—Night Thoughts. Night II. L. 180.