Explore well-known and useful Latin quotes, phrases and sayings. In Latin with translation.
— Galén Roman physician, surgeon and philosopher 129 - 216
Title of a treatise; cited from Judith Perkins The Suffering Self (London: Routledge, 1995) p. 154.
Latter day attributions
Original: (la) Quod optimus medicus sit quoque philosophus.
— Hannibal military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War -247 - -183 BC
Last words according to Livy "ab urbe condita", Book XXXIX, 51.
Original: (la) Liberemus diuturna cura populum Romanum, quando mortem senis exspectare longum censent. (Latin, not original language)
— Hannibal military commander of Carthage during the Second Punic War -247 - -183 BC
Latin proverb, most commonly attributed to Hannibal in response to his generals who had declared it impossible to cross the Alps with elephants; English translation as quoted in Salesmanship and Business Efficiency (1922) by James Samuel Knox, p. 27.
Original: (la) Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.
— Rudolf Virchow German doctor, anthropologist, public health activist, pathologist, prehistorian, biologist and politician 1821 - 1902
Original: (la) Omnis cellula e cellula
— Isidore of Seville, book Etymologiae
Bk. 1, ch. 3, sect. 1; p. 96.
Etymologiae
Original: (la) Litterae autem sunt indices rerum, signa verborum, quibus tanta vis est, ut nobis dicta absentium sine voce loquantur. Verba enim per oculos non per aures introducunt.
— John Amos Comenius Czech teacher, educator, philosopher and writer 1592 - 1670
The Great Didactic (Didactica Magna) (Amsterdam, 1657) [written 1627–38], as translated by M. W. Keatinge (1896).
Cf. Aristotle, De anima, III, 4, 430a: "δυνάμει δ' οὕτως ὥσπερ ἐν γραμματείῳ ᾧ μηθὲν ἐνυπάρχει ἐντελεχείᾳ γεγραμμένον· ὅπερ συμβαίνει ἐπὶ τοῦ νοῦ."
Original: (la) Aristoteles hominis animum comparavit tabulae rasae, cui nihil inscriptum sit, inscribi tamen omnia possint. … Hoc interest, quod in tabula lineas ducere non licet, nisi quousque margo permittat: in mente usque et usque scribendo, et sculpendo, terminum nusquam invenies quia (ut ante monitum) interminabilis est.
— Seneca the Younger, Hercules Furens
Hercules Furens (The Madness of Hercules), lines 325-328; (Megara).
Tragedies
Original: (la) Iniqua raro maximis virtutibus fortuna parcit ; nemo se tuto diu periculis offerre tam crebris potest ; quem saepe transit casus, aliquando invenit.
— Publilio Siro Latin writer
Maxim 444
Variant translation: Necessity knows no law except to conquer.
Necessitas non habet legem, "Necessity has no law", is apparently of medieval origin. See Necessity for further variants.
Sentences
Original: (la) Necessitas dat legem non ipsa accipit.
— Nero Emperor of Ancient Rome, 5th and last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty 37 - 68
Variant translations:
What an artisan I am in dying!
So great an artist, I die!
Like an artist, I die.
Truly... an artist is about to perish.
Quoted in ""Nero"" - Page 51 by Edward Champlin - History - 2003
Original: (la) Qualis artifex pereo.
Captivi, Act II, scene 2, line 75.
Variant translation: There are occasions when it is undoubtedly better to incur loss than to make gain. (translation by Henry Thomas Riley)
Captivi (The Prisoners)
Original: (la) Non ego omnino lucrum omne esse utile homini existimo. Scio ego, multos jam lucrum luculentos homines reddidit. Est etiam, ubi profecto damnum praestet facere, quam lucrum.
Trinummus, Act II, sc. 2, line 111; reported in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations, 10th ed. (1919).
Alternate translation : This is not the best thing possible, nor what I consider proper ; but it is better than the worst. (translator A. H. Evans)
Trinummus (The Three Coins)
Original: (la) Non optuma haec sunt neque ut ego aequom censeo : verum meliora sunt quam quae deterruma.
Mercator, Act IV, scene 7, line 40
Mercator (The Merchant)
Original: (la) Feliciter is sapit, qui alieno periculo sapit.
Epidicus, Act I, sc. 2, line 9.
Epidicus
Original: (la) Nihil agit, qui diffidentem verbis solatus suis. Is est amicus, qui in re dubia te juvat, ubi re est opus.
Context: The man that comforts a desponding friend with words alone, does nothing. He’s a friend indeed who proves himself a friend in need.
Trinummus, Act II, scene 4, lines 12
Trinummus (The Three Coins)
Original: (la) Non tibi illud apparere, si sumas, potest, nisi tu immortale rere esse argentum tibi. Sero atque stulte, prius quod cautum oportuit, postquam comedit rem, post rationem putat.
Context: You cannot eat your cake and have it too, unless you think your money is immortal. The fool too late, his substance eaten up, reckons the cost. (translator Thornton)
— Nero Emperor of Ancient Rome, 5th and last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty 37 - 68
Variant translation: I wish I were illiterate.
Quoted in " De Clementia" - Chapter 1, Book 2 by Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
Original: (la) Vellem nescire literas.
Original: (la) Forsan miseros meliora sequentur.
Source: Aeneid (29–19 BC), Book XII, Line 153 (tr. Fagles)
— Publilio Siro Latin writer
Maxim 407
Adopted by the original Edinburgh Review magazine as its motto.
Sentences
Original: (la) Iudex damnatur ubi nocens absolvitur.
— Pliny the Younger Roman writer 61 - 113
Letter 22, 7.
Letters, Book IV
Original: (la) Utque in corporibus sic in imperio gravissimus est morbus, qui a capite diffunditur.
— Cato the Elder politician, writer and economist (0234-0149) -234 - -149 BC
Cato's advice to orators (as quoted in Julius Victor, Art of Rhetoric. p. 197, Orell.; see also Wilhelm Sigismund Teuffel, Teuffel's History of Roman literature, Vol. 1 (1873), p. 158)
Cf. Dionysius Halicarnassensis, De Isocrate, ch. 12: "βούλεται δὲ ἡ φύσις τοῖς νοήμασιν ἕπεσθαι τὴν λέξιν, οὐ τῇ λέξει τὰ νοήματα." [Νature has it that style is in the service of thought, not the other way around.]
Variant translations:
Stick to your subject, and words will follow.
Get hold of the matter, the words will come of themselves.
Lay hold of the subject, and the words will follow.
Keep to the subject and the words will come.
Grasp the point, the words will follow.
Seize the subject; the words will follow.
Stick to the point; the words will follow.
Master the facts; the words will follow.
Lay hold of the substance, the words will follow.
Hold fast to the matter, the words will come.
Hang onto your meaning, and the words will come.
Have a grip of your theme and the words will come.
Hold the idea and the words will follow.
Stick to the meaning, and the words will take care of themselves.
Original: (la) Rem tene, verba sequentur.
