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1 " To those Romans December twenty-fifth was the birthday of the sun. They wrote that in gold letters in their calendar. Every year about that time, the middle of winter, the sun was born once more and it was going to put an end to the darkness and misery of winter. So they had a great feast, with presents and dolls for everybody, and the best day of all was December twenty-fifth. That feast, they would tell you, was thousands of years old- before Christ was ever heard of. "
― , Pagan Origins of the Christ Myth
2 " i thank You God for most this amazingday: for the leaping greenly spirits of treesand a blue true dream of sky; and for everythingwhich is natural which is infinite which is yes(i who have died am alive again today,and this is the sun's birthday; this is the birthday of life and of love and wings: and of the gaygreat happening illimitably earth)how should tasting touching hearing seeingbreathing any---lifted from the noof all nothing---human merely beingdoubt unimaginably You?(now the ears of my ears awake andnow the eyes of my eyes are opened) "
― E.E. Cummings , 100 Selected Poems
3 " Children are grateful when Santa Claus puts in their stockings gifts of toys or sweets. Could I not be grateful to Santa Claus when he put in my stockings the gift of two miraculous legs? We thank people for birthday presents of cigars and slippers. Can I thank no one for the birthday present of birth? "
― G.K. Chesterton , Orthodoxy
4 " On the doorstep Adele met Tony Limpsfield. She hurried him into her motor, and told the chauffeur not to drive on." News!" she said. " Lucia's going to have a lover." " No!" said Tony in the Riseholme manner" But I tell you she is. He's with her now." " They won't want me then," said Tony. " And yet she asked me to come at half-past five." " Nonsense, my dear. They will want you, both of them. . . . Oh Tony, don't you see? It's a stunt." Tony assumed the rapt expression of Luciaphils receiving intelligence." Tell me all about it," he said." I'm sure I'm right," said she. " Her poppet came in just now, and she held his hand as women do, and made him draw his chair up to her, and said he scolded her. I'm not sure that he knows yet. But I saw that he guessed something was up. I wonder if he's clever enough to do it properly. . . . I wish she had chosen you, Tony, you'd have done it perfectly. They have got--don't you understand?--to have the appearance of being lovers, everyone must think they are lovers, while all the time there's nothing at all of any sort in it. It's a stunt: it's a play: it's a glory." " But perhaps there is something in it," said Tony. " I really think I had better not go in." " Tony, trust me. Lucia has no more idea of keeping a real lover than of keeping a chimpanzee. She's as chaste as snow, a kiss would scorch her. Besides, she hasn't time. She asked Stephen there in order to show him to me, and to show him to you. It's the most wonderful plan; and it's wonderful of me to have understood it so quickly. You must go in: there's nothing private of any kind: indeed, she thirsts for publicity." Her confidence inspired confidence, and Tony was naturally consumed with curiosity. He got out, told Adele's chauffeur to drive on, and went upstairs. Stephen was no longer sitting in the chair next to Lucia, but on the sofa at the other side of the tea-table. This rather looked as if Adele was right: it was consistent anyhow with their being lovers in public, but certainly not lovers in private." Dear Lord Tony," said Lucia--this appellation was a halfway house between Lord Limpsfield and Tony, and she left out the " Lord" except to him--" how nice of you to drop in. You have just missed Adele. Stephen, you know Lord Limpsfield?" Lucia gave him his tea, and presently getting up, reseated herself negligently on the sofa beside Stephen. She was a shade too close at first, and edged slightly away." Wonderful play of Tchekov's the other day," she said. " Such a strange, unhappy atmosphere. We came out, didn't we, Stephen, feeling as if we had been in some remote dream. I saw you there, Lord Tony, with Adele who had been lunching with me." Tony knew that: was not that the birthday of the Luciaphils? "
5 " The day which we fear as our last is but the birthday of eternity. "
― Emily March , Reflection Point (Eternity Springs, #6)
6 " May it be long before the people of the United States shall cease to take a deep and pervading interest in the Fourth of July, as the birthday of our national life, or the event which then occurred shall be subordinated to any other of our national history. "