Our sun is a giant ball of hydrogen and helium measuring 864,000 miles across and, at its core, reaching temperatures of 27 million degrees Fahrenheit. Those numbers are so staggering as to be incomprehensible. Standing here on Earth, looking up at the star that casts us in its warm light every day, we rarely think about how it and the rest of our solar system formed from a giant, rotating cloud of gas and dust about 4.5 billion years ago.
That doesn’t mean we fail to appreciate it, though. The sun warms our shoulders and draws seedlings up from the soil. It is the very source of life on our planet. It inspires us with its unfaltering reliability, rising every morning to start a new day — and who could claim indifference to the stunning display of a sunset, when the light reaches up through the clouds in a shifting array of colors?
Yes, to those of us here on Earth, the sun is much more than a star, and as the daylight hours grow longer, we look forward to warm, languid days. In honor of the glowing center of our universe, we've collected 10 quotes about how the sun inspires us with its quotidian brilliance.
The sun does not shine for a few trees and flowers, but for the wide world's joy.Henry Ward Beecher
Even after all this time the sun never says to the earth, 'You owe me.' Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.Hāfiz
No sun outlasts its sunset, but it will rise again and bring the dawn.Maya
The sun will rise and set regardless. What we choose to do with the light while it's here is up to us. Journey wisely.Alexandra
I was rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days.Henry David Thoreau
It's always sunny above the clouds. Always. Every day on earth — every day I have ever had — was secretly sunny, after all.Caitlin
As the sun peaks over the mountain, it's a new day on our miraculous planet. Reason alone for celebration.Oprah
Learn from flowers — always angle towards the sun.Maureen
The sun, with all those planets revolving around it and dependent on it, can still ripen a bunch of grapes as if it had nothing else in the universe to do.Galileo
Every morning, the rising sun invites and inspires us to begin again.Debasish Mridha
Featured image credit: picsbyjameslee/ Unsplash
