AS THE WORLD TURNS

Rien sans nous

Here's one of the hundred or so sundials to be seen in Paris. Look for this late 17th-century lyre-shaped cadran solaire on the tower of the Musée de Cluny. Its Latin inscription, "nil sine nobis" means nothing without us.


©2015 P.B. Lecron

TAKE YOUR TIME

Prenez votre temps

Sixteenth-century sundial, absent it's needle, at the famed Alsatian Musée Unterlinden in Colmar.

Patience et longueur de temps font plus que force ni que rage.

Moral of Jean de la Fontaine's fable, via Aesop, Le Lion et le Rat: patience and time can do more than strength and rage.

Vocabulary
s'enerver:  to get excited, to get worked up
agir:  to behave, to act
la force:  strength
une aiguille:  a needle

Expressions
dans le sens des aiguilles d'une montre:  clockwise
dans le sens inverse des aiguilles d'une montre:  counterclockwise

©2013 P.B. Lecron

SEIZE THE DAY

Cueille le jour présent sans te soucier du lendemain. 

Advice from antiquity frequently handed out by cadrans solaires. This one watches the hours pass in the Alsatian village of Riquewihr.

Vocabulary

un cadran solaire:  a sundial

cueillir:  to pick, to gather

se soucier de: to care about

For more French sundials, click on these links: A French Rule of Conduct and Courage Every Hour

©2013 P.B. Lecron