Quotes about translation
page 8

“Babylonian mathematics and astronomy have left an indelible impression on our exact sciences. We still call some of the planets by their Babylonian names in translation.”

Cyrus H. Gordon (1908–2001) American linguist

Introduction
Adventures in the Nearest East (1957)

Mathematics, Science

“Total experiences, of which there are many kinds, tend again and again to be apprehended only as revivals or translations of the religious imagination. To try to make a fresh way of talking at the most serious, ardent, and enthusiastic level, heading off the religious encapsulation, is one of the primary intellectual tasks of future thought.”

Susan Sontag book Styles of Radical Will

“The Pornographic Imagination,” p. 69
Styles of Radical Will (1966)

Way, Imagination, Future

“In defiance of other judges I have faith in your voice. Voice of your common sense. Give this job up. Thank you very much”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

A ja na przekór kolegom wierzę w twój głos. W twój głos rozsądku. Rzuć tę robotę. Dziękujemy ci bardzo.
To Idol contestants

Faith, Sense

“You have only one disadvantage: you don't have any advantages.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Masz tylko jedną wadę: brak Ci zalet.
To Idol contestants

“Keep what you’ve got; the evil that we know is best. (translator Thornton)”
Habeus ut nactus ; nota mala res optima’st.

Plautus Trinummus

Trinummus, Act I, scene 2, lines 25
Trinummus (The Three Coins)

Evil

“Having lost the last war, they are currently enjoying a Wirtschaftswunder, which can be briefly translated as "The best way to own a Mercedes is to build one."”

Alan Coren (1938–2007) humorist and writer from the United Kingdom

"All You Need To Know About Europe", Germany.
The Sanity Inspector (1974)

War, Way

“Academic excellency and moral of students should be achieved with integration because good morals directly will shape a conducive environment for students to achieve success.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

SMJK Keat Hwa Excellence Award Day 2017 https://www.bharian.com.my/node/283525

Success

“Translated: Mankind doesn't grant itself anything—that is why it has invented the law. It isn't allowed for him so it shouldn't be allowed for others.”

Kurt Tucholský (1890–1935) German-Jewish journalist, satirist and writer

Der Mensch gönnt seiner Gattung nichts, daher hat er die Gesetze erfunden. Er darf nicht, also sollen die andern auch nicht.
From Der Mensch, published 1931.

Law

“Man is only miserable so far as he thinks himself so.”

Jacopo Sannazaro (1458–1530) Italian writer

Tanto è miser l'uom quant' ei si riputa.
Ecloga Octava; reported in Hoyt's New Cyclopedia Of Practical Quotations (1922), "Mind".

Thinking

“the same year in which I began Latin, I made my first commencement in the Greek poet with the Iliad. After I had made some progress in this, my father put Pope's translation into my hands. It was the first English verse I had cared to read, and it became one of the books in which for many years I most delighted: I think I must have read it from twenty to thirty times through. I should not have thought it worth while to mention a taste apparently so natural to boyhood, if I had not, as I think, observed that the keen enjoyment of this brilliant specimen of narrative and versification is not so universal with boys, as I should have expected both a priori and from my individual experience.”

John Stuart Mill book Autobiography

Source: Autobiography (1873)

https://archive.org/details/autobiography01mill/page/10/mode/1up p. 10

Books, Boy, Nature, Thinking

“I have always observed that to succeed in the world one should appear like a fool but be wise.”

Montesquieu (1689–1755) French social commentator and political thinker

J'ai toujours vu que, pour réussir dans le monde, il fallait avoir l'air fou et être sage.
Pensées Diverses

World, Fools, Appearance, Wise

“I only have one sentence to say: it is the people who kept you fed, so do as you see fit.”

Wen Jiabao (1942) former Premier of the People's Republic of China

Wen Jiabao (2008) cited in: In Chinese:军队行动迟缓温家宝怒摔电话, 16 May 2008, Renminbao.com http://renminbao.com/rmb/articles/2008/5/16/47669.html, During 2008 Sichuan Earthquake, Wen's angry reply to the PLA rescue team about their delays before they boarded the rescue plane:

People

“are the familiar translations and rotations… made in proving the theorems of Euclid.”

Howard P. Robertson (1903–1961) American mathematician and physicist

Geometry as a Branch of Physics (1949)

“When the prayer is granted, they cheat the saint.”

Stefano Guazzo (1530–1593) Italian writer

Fatto il voto, gabbano il Santo.
Del Conoscimento di se stesso, p. 457.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 300.

Cheating

“Tibet preserved as best as it could, what India was no longer in a position to do. For example, 4000 books belonging to the Sanskrit, Pali and Prakrit literature were translated into Tibetan language. Today, about 3800 of them are no longer even known in India. They were so completely destroyed. The work of destruction was so complete. Today much of old India is found in neighbouring countries like Tibet and Siam and Cambodia; and India's old past history cannot be reconstructed except with their aid.”

Ram Swarup (1920–1998) Indian historian

On Hinduism (2000)

Books, History, Literature, Past

“Meanwhile the hooked weapons of their enemies were not idle, and our wretched countrymen were dragged from the wall and dashed against the ground.”
Interea non cessant uncinata nudorum tela, quibus miserrimi cives de muris tracti solo allidebantur.

Gildas De Excidio et Conquestu Britanniae

Section 19.
Gildas here describes post-Roman Britons on Hadrian's Wall defending it against the Scots and Picts below. This bizarre image, familiar to students of British history for generations, is belied by a more recent translation which runs, "Meanwhile there was no respite from the barbed spears flung by their naked opponents, which tore our wretched countrymen from the walls and dashed them to the ground." (Michael Winterbottom (trans.) Gildas: The Ruin of Britain and Other Works (1978) p. 23).
De Excidio Britanniae (On the Ruin of Britain)

“The final lines are not mine: they come from an experiment on soft matter, after Boudin… An English translation might run like this:
Have fun on sea and land
Unhappy it is to become famous
Riches, honors, false glitters of this world
All is but soap bubbles”

Pierre-Gilles de Gennes (1932–2007) French Physicist

'No conclusion could be more appropriate today.'
"Soft Matter" Nobel lecture (9 December 1991)

World, Falseness, Sea

“The mysterious name of God, revealed from the burning bush, a name which separates this God from all other divinities with their many names and simply asserts being, "I am", already presents a challenge to the notion of myth, to which Socrates' attempt to vanquish and transcend myth stands in close analogy. Within the Old Testament, the process which started at the burning bush came to new maturity at the time of the Exile, when the God of Israel, an Israel now deprived of its land and worship, was proclaimed as the God of heaven and earth and described in a simple formula which echoes the words uttered at the burning bush: "I am". This new understanding of God is accompanied by a kind of enlightenment, which finds stark expression in the mockery of gods who are merely the work of human hands (cf. Ps 115). Thus, despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at a deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature. Today we know that the Greek translation of the Old Testament produced at Alexandria - the Septuagint - is more than a simple (and in that sense really less than satisfactory) translation of the Hebrew text: it is an independent textual witness and a distinct and important step in the history of revelation, one which brought about this encounter in a way that was decisive for the birth and spread of Christianity. A profound encounter of faith and reason is taking place here, an encounter between genuine enlightenment and religion. From the very heart of Christian faith and, at the same time, the heart of Greek thought now joined to faith, Manuel II was able to say: Not to act "with logos" is contrary to God's nature.”

Pope Benedict XVI (1927) 265th Pope of the Catholic Church

2006, Faith, Reason and the University — Memories and Reflections (2006)

Wisdom, God, Faith, Religion

“I always remember how a novel written by John Braine in the 1950s about working-class life in England, which was called Room at the Top, which was translated into Swedish as The Attic!”

John Banville (1945) Irish writer

John Banville: Using words to paint pictures of "magical" Prague (2006)

Life

“I want to have my own moon, I can go to
Where I can forget that you left me
I can sit on my moon and do what I want
Where I stay until everything is alright.”

Kenneth Gärdestad (1948–2018) Swedish song lyricist, architect and lecturer

Jag vill ha en egen måne, jag kan åka till
Där jag kan glömma att du lämnat mig
Jag kan sitta på min måne och göra vad jag vill
Där stannar jag tills allting ordnat sig.
"Jag vill ha en egen måne", lyrics written by Kenneth
Song lyrics, With Ted Gärdestad, Undringar (1972)

Forgetting

“The man of mark is never appreciated, either in his lifetime or in his own country.”

Camillo Federici (1749–1802) Italian actor and playwright (1749-1802)

L’uomo insigne non è mai apprezzato nè in vita, nè in patria.
I Preguidizi del Paesi Piccoli, Act II., Sc. V. — (L’Uffiziale).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 338.

Country

“Snow had fallen and from the museum [in Pittsburgh, The ] you had a beautiful view of a valley with a railway, through some sheds, etc. But I could not finish it, and today, Sunday, I went back there again, but then the snow was already so far away that I could not make anything of it any more. It is a pity. Otherwise I could have sold something. [The painting was sold to the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam in 1934] (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

version in original Dutch (citaat van Breitner's brief, in het Nederlands:) Er was namelijk sneeuw gevallen en uit het museum [in Pittsburgh, Breitner nam deel aan een jury en maakte vanuit een raam aan de achterzijde van het Carnegie Institute enkele schetsen en begon aan een schilderij] had men een prachtig gezicht op een dal met een spoorweg, door wat loodsen, enz. Maar ik kon 't niet afkrijgen, en vandaag, zondag, was ik er weer heengegaan, maar toen was de sneeuw al zoo ver dat ik [er] niets meer van kon maken. Het is wel jammer. Anders had ik nog wat kunnen verkoopen misschien. [Het schilderij is in 1934 verkocht aan het Stedelijk museum Amsterdam.]
In Breitner' letter to his wife, 1909, from Pittsburgh; as cited in George Hendrik Breitner in Amsterdam, J. F. Heijbroek, Erik Schmitz; uitgeverij THOTH, Bussum, 2014, p. 22
Breitner took part in an art-jury in Pittsburgh in 1909. He started to make some sketches from a window at the back-side of the Carnegie Institute and later the painting]
1900 - 1923

Beauty, Painting

“During the fourteenth century some unknown scholars prepared a new translation of the whole Bible into the Middle High German dialect. It slavishly follows the Latin Vulgate. It may be compared to Wiclif's English Version (1380), which was likewise made from the Vulgate, the original languages being then almost unknown in Europe. A copy of the New Testament of this version has been recently published, from a manuscript in the Premonstratensian convent of Tepl in Bohemia. Another copy is preserved in the college library at Freiberg in Saxony.”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

German versions of the Bible that preceded the Luther Bible

“Translates to: for a triangle, the result of a perpendicular with the half-side is the area.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

Source: Arijit Roy “The Enigma of Creation and Destruction”, p. 27 from the Ganitapada, quoted in "The Enigma of Creation and Destruction".

“A religion, which is not able or no more able to raise to the height of acquired science, is a dead religion.”

Leopold Zunz (1794–1886) German Reform Rabbi

Eine Religion, welche nicht oder nicht mehr fähig ist, sich auf die Höhe der erworbenen Wissenschaft zu erheben, ist eine tote Religion.
Quoted in Lippische Mitteilungen aus Geschichte und Landeskunde, Volume 75, p. 127

Religion, Science, Dead

“Gallows, n. A stage for the performance of miracle plays, in which the leading actor is translated to heaven. ”

Ambrose Bierce book The Devil's Dictionary

The Devil's Dictionary (1911)

“In order to enjoy the inestimable benefits that the liberty of the press ensures, it is necessary to submit to the inevitable evils it creates”

Alexis De Tocqueville book Democracy in America

Pour recueillir les biens inestimables qu'assure la liberté de la presse, il faut savoir se soumettre aux maux inévitables qu'elle fait naître.
Source: Democracy in America, Volume I (1835), Chapter X-XIV, Chapter XI.

Evil

“'If we win the Welsh Heartland, then we win Wales; if we lose the Welsh Heartland, it is not Wales that we win.”

Owain Owain (1929–1993) Welsh novelist, short story writer and poet

Y Cymro, 12/11/1964
Source: http://owainowain.net/yllenor/yrysgrif/ysgrifaucynnar/ysgrifaucynnar.htm#Y%20DYSTIOLAETH%20BRYDEINIG Y Cymro, 12/11/1964; republished in Bara Brith

“If it is only difficult, it is done; if it is impossible, we shall see.”

Charles Alexandre de Calonne (1734–1802) French statesman

Si cela n'est que difficile, c'est fait; si cela est impossible, nous verrons. Response to Marie Antoinette when she informed him that something she needed done might be difficult. Quoted by François Guizot in Biographie Universelle, Volume 6 http://books.google.com/books?id=za4FAAAAQAAJ&q=%22n'est+que+difficile+c'est+fait+si+cela+est+impossible+nous+verrons%22&pg=PA567#v=onepage (1812)

“The Koran cannot be translated — the "map" changes on translation no matter how carefully one tries.”

Robert A. Heinlein (1907–1988) American science fiction author

Robert A. Heinlein, in Stranger in a Strange Land (1961)

Change

“Translates to: Add four to 100, multiply by eight, and then add 62,000. By this rule the circumference of a circle with a diameter of 20,000 can be approached. Thus according to the rule ((4 + 100) × 8 + 62000)/20000 = 62832/20000 = 3.1416, which is accurate to five significant figures.”

Aryabhata (476–550) Indian mathematician-astronomer

The irrationality of pi was proved by Lambert in Europe in the year 1761. Source: Arijit Roy The Enigma of Creation and Destruction http://books.google.co.in/books?id=JFmUQqYzA7wC&pg=PA27, Author House, 28 October 2011, p. 27

“Why is it that any technological and scientific achievement reached in the Middle East region is translated into and portrayed as a threat to the Zionist regime? Is not scientific R&D one of the basic rights of nations? Can the possibility of scientific achievements being utilized for military purposes be reason enough to oppose science and technology altogether?”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraph 20
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

Science

“Except for Marxian theories, nearly all modern theories of the business cycle have essential elements that trace back to Knut Wicksell's turn-of-the-century writings on interest and prices. Austrians, New Classicists, Monetarists, and even Keynesians can legitimately claim a kinship on this basis. Accordingly, the recognition, that both the Austrians and the New Classicists have a Swedish ancestry does not translate into a meaningful claim that the two schools are essentially similar. To the contrary, identifying their particular relationships to Wicksellian ideas, like comparing the two formally similar business-cycle theories themselves, reveals more differences than similarities. … [T]o establish the essential difference between the Austrians and the New Classicists, it needs to be added that the focus of the Austrian theory is on the actual market process that translates the monetary cause into the real phenomena and hence on the institutional setting in which this process plays itself out.The New Classicists deliberately abstract from institutional considerations and specifically deny, on the basis of empirical evidence, that the interest rate plays a significant role in cyclical fluctuations (Lucas 1981, p. 237 151–1). Thus, Wicksell's Interest and Prices is at best only half relevant to EBCT. … Taking the Wicksellian metaphor as their cue, the New Classicists are led away from the pre-eminent Austrian concern about the actual market process that transforms cause into effect and towards the belief that a full specification of the economy's structure, which is possible only in the context of an artificial economy, can shed light on an effect whose nature is fundamentally independent of the cause.”

Roger Garrison (1944) American economist

Pages 98–99.
"New Classical and Old Austrian Economics", 1991

School, Idea, Business, Nature

“Iraq hasn't suddenly 'slipped back into' this backward and benighted state. It was bombed there by a mulish military power which didn't know Shiite from Shinola. [translated from German]”

Ilana Mercer South African writer

"Irak: Von Tuten und Blasen keine Ahnung gehabt" http://jungefreiheit.de/kolumne/2014/irak-von-tuten-und-blasen-keine-ahnung-gehabt/, Junge Freiheit, June 27, 2014. 2010s, 2014

“O men! be just Give aid first and counsel afterwards.”

Camillo Federici (1749–1802) Italian actor and playwright (1749-1802)

Eh! uomini, slate giusti. Prima soccorrete, e poi consigliate.
Il Delatore, Act III, Sc. I. — (Lucia).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 298.

Men

“I did nothing during the war that was not also done by hundreds of thousands of Austrians, that was my duty as a soldier.”

Kurt Waldheim (1918–2007) 4th Secretary-General of the United Nations, President of Austria

Ich habe im Krieg nichts anderes getan als hunderttausende Österreicher auch, nämlich meine Pflicht als Soldat erfüllt. Waldheim Affair http://derstandard.at/2000031874110/Ich-habe-im-Krieg-nichts-anderes-getan-als-meine-Pflicht, 9 March 1986

War

“Princes' sports are these:
A mill they'll spare: a province they will seize.”

François Andrieux (1759–1833) French man of letters and playwright

Ce sont là jeux de prince:
On respecte un moulin: on vole une province.
Le Meunier de Sans-Souci. (Ed. 1818, Vol. III., p. 208).
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 24.

Sport

“On quantum theory I use up more brain grease (rough translation of German idiom) than on relativity.”

Albert Einstein (1879–1955) German-born physicist and founder of the theory of relativity

Quoted by Otto Stern, a colleague of Einstein in Zurich from 1912 to 1914, in a 1962 oral history interview http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4904.html with Thomas S. Kuhn Attributed in posthumous publications

“Too many for the fruit cut down the tree,
And find their gain in world-wide misery.”

Francesco Dall'Ongaro (1808–1873) Italian poet, playwright and librettist

Troppi taglian la pianta per i frutti,
E traggono lor pro dal mal di tutti.
Stornelli Politici, "Gaetano Semenza", II.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 428.

World, Tree

“Faction is the greatest evil and the most common danger. "Faction" is the conventional English translation of the Greek stasis, one of the most remarkable words to be found in any language.”

Moses I. Finley (1912–1986) American historian

Source: Democracy Ancient And Modern (Second Edition) (1985), Chapter 2, Athenian Demagogues, p. 44

Evil

“The creative process lies not in imitating, but in paralleling nature — translating the impulse received from nature into the medium of expression, thus vitalizing this medium. The picture should be alive, the statue should be alive, and every work of art should be alive.”

Hans Hofmann (1880–1966) American artist

'Painting and Culture' p. 55
Search for the Real and Other Essays (1948)

Art, Nature

“A dictator is often a revolutionary who has made a name for himself. A revolutionary is often a bourgeois who hasn't.”

Marco Denevi book Falsificaciones

A menudo un dictador es un revolucionario que hizo carrera. A menudo un revolucionario es un burgués que no la hizo.
Falsificaciones (1977)

“In Brazil as in the United States, we find two voices of a New World promise of happinessː a promise to raise up human life to the exuberance of nature itself while breaking down the hierarchies and privileges that keep people distant from one another. A society of originals whose enhanced powers and self-possession enable them to accept one another more fully is the aim of this American and Brazilian dream. Translated into another, more universal vocabulary, this longing represents one form of the effort to reconcile a pagan ambition of greatness with a Christian idea of tenderness, purging the former of its impulse toward masterfulness and the latter of its knack for resentment. Thus, empowerment and solidarity can come more fully together.”

Roberto Mangabeira Unger (1947) Brazilian philosopher and politician

Source: Democracy Realizedː The Progressive Alternative (1998), p. 126

Life, People, World, Dreams

“Too literary. (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in Dutch (citaat van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Te literair.
short note in Israëls' Journal, 12 Dec. 1903, (in Jan Veth 1903, nr. 6); as cited in Jozef Israëls, 1824 – 1911, ed. Dieuwertje Dekkers; Waanders, Zwolle 1999, p. 199
Israëls was citing here Sientje Mesdag-van Houten who was characterizing his work that day; several of Israëls' paintings were present in the collection of Mr and Mrs Mesdag
Quotes of Jozef Israels, after 1900

“Translation came naturally to me because as a child I was translated from Germany to Britain.”

Michael Hamburger (1924–2007) British translator, poet, critic, memoirist and academic

Interview with Lidia Vianu http://lidiavianu.scriptmania.com/Michael%20Hamburger.htm

Nature

“This Duhamel has invented an infinity of machines which serve no purpose, has written and translated a multitude of books on agriculture, of which it is not known if they have any useful result, that is still awaited.”

Henri-Louis Duhamel du Monceau (1700–1782) French naval engineer, botanist and agronomist

Denis Diderot, Oeuvres complètes de Diderot: revues sur les éditions originales, comprenant ce qui a été publié à diverses époques et les manuscrits inédits, conservés à la Bibliothèque de l'Ermitage, notices, notes, table analytique, Volume 11. Garnier frères, 1767. p. 366

Books

“Revenue and cost have to be in the right relation to each other.”

Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)

Erträge und Kosten müssen im richtigen Verhältnis zueinander stehen.
In a speech in Düsseldorf in 1986

“It is the political task of the social scientist — as of any liberal educator — continually to translate personal troubles into public issues, and public issues into the terms of their human meaning for a variety of individuals. It is his task to display in his work — and, as an educator, in his life as well — this kind of sociological imagination. And it is his purpose to cultivate such habits of mind among the men and women who are publicly exposed to him. To secure these ends is to secure reason and individuality, and to make these the predominant values of a democratic society.”

C. Wright Mills book The Sociological Imagination

The Sociological Imagination (1959)

Life, Women, Men, Education

“In my opinion you are a little similar to Rudolph Valentino. I don't know if you remember such an actor. It is a great direction for you - he acted in silent films.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Dla mnie jesteś trochę jak Rudolph Valentino, nie wiem, czy pamiętasz takiego bohatera kina. Znakomity kierunek dla ciebie: on był bohaterem kina niemego.
To Idol contestants

“Variant translation: "I saw the infinite, all-knowing and all-powerful God from behind as he went away, and I grew dizzy. I followed his footsteps over nature's fields and saw everywhere an eternal wisdom and power, an inscrutable perfection." (As quoted in History of Science, by Peter Whitfield”

Carl Linnaeus book Systema Naturae

2003), Scholastic Library Pub, p. 23.
Systema Naturae

Wisdom, God, Quotes, History

“The best critic of a translation is its second translation and nothing else. The person who translates a text should have something to say about that.”

Media Kashigar (1956–2017) Iranian translator, writer and poet

Source: The best critic of a translation is its second translation, Center for the Great Islamic Encyclopedia, 2013 https://www.cgie.org.ir/fa/news/3001

Personality

“Have you seen "The Silence of the Lambs"? What were the lambs doing? They were keeping silent. I wish you doing it as well.”

Kuba Wojewódzki (1963) Polish journalist

Widziałaś film "Milczenie owiec"?
Co robiły owce? Milczały. Czego i tobie życzę.
To Idol contestants

Silence

“You have not become an entrepreneur to fill in forms full time.”

Rita Verdonk (1955) Dutch politician

Slogan used on Rita Verdonk's weblog http://www.ritaverdonk.net/ retrieved 25 November 2007.

Time

“Hartenstraat - the air is strong light - houses, illuminated from the top, left - flags translucent (translation from the original Dutch, Fons Heijnsbroek)”

George Hendrik Breitner (1857–1923) Dutch painter and photographer

version in original Dutch / werk-notities van Breitner, in het Nederlands:
Hartenstraat - 1 uur 's middags - de vlaggen werpen schaduw op de huizen
Hartenstraat - de lucht is sterk licht - huizen, links van boven verlicht - vlaggen doorschijnend
two working-notes, (1890-1895) from his sketch-books; as cited in George Hendrik Breitner in Amsterdam, J. F. Heijbroek, Erik Schmitz; uitgeverij THOTH, Bussum, 2014, p. 38
1890 - 1900

Light, Strong, Housing

“The Pre-Lutheran German Bible. The precise origin of the mediaeval German Bible is still unknown. Dr. Ludwig Keller of Münster first suggested in his Die Reformation und die älteren Reformparteien, Leipzig, 1885, pp. 257-260, the hypothesis that it was made by Waldenses (who had also a Romanic version); and he tried to prove it in his Die Waldenser und die deutschen Bibelübersetzungen, Leipzig, 1886 (189 pages). Dr. Hermann Haupt, of Würzburg, took the same ground in his Die deutsche Bibelübersetzung der mittelalterlichen Waldenser in dem Codex Teplensis und der ersten gedruckten Bibel nachgewiesen, Würzburg, 1885 (64 pages); and again, in self-defense against Jostes, in Der waldensische Ursprung des Codex Teplensis und der vor-lutherischen deutschen Bibeldrucke, Würzburg, 1886. On the other hand, Dr. Franz Jostes, a Roman Catholic scholar, denied the Waldensian and defended the Catholic origin of that translation, in two pamphlets: Die Waldenser und die vorlutherische Bibelübersetzung, Münster, 1885 (44 pages), and Die Tepler Bibelübersetzung. Eine zweite Kritik, Münster, 1886 (43 pages). The same author promises a complete history of German Catholic Bible versions.
The hostility of several Popes and Councils to the circulation of vernacular translations of the Bible implies the existence of such translations, and could not prevent their publication, as the numerous German editions prove. Dutch, French, and Italian versions also appeared among the earliest prints. See Stevens, Nos. 687 and 688 (p. 59 sq.). The Italian edition exhibited in 1877 at London is entitled: La Biblia en lingua Volgare (per Nicolo di Mallermi). Venetia: per Joan. Rosso Vercellese, 1487, fol. A Spanish Bible by Bonif. Ferrer was printed at Valencia, 1478 (see Reuss, Gesch. der heil. Schr. N. T., II. 207, 5th Ed.).
The Bible is the common property and most sacred treasure of all Christian churches. The art of printing was invented in Catholic times, and its history goes hand in hand with the history of the Bible. Henry Stevens says (The Bibles in the Caxton Exhibition, p. 25): ""The secular history of the Holy Scriptures is the sacred history of Printing. The Bible was the first book printed, and the Bible is the last book printed. Between 1450 and 1877, an interval of four centuries and a quarter, the Bible shows the progress and comparative development of the art of printing in a manner that no other single book can; and Biblical bibliography proves that during the first forty years, at least, the Bible exceeded in amount of printing all other books put together; nor were its quality, style, and variety a whit behind its quantity.""”

Philip Schaff (1819–1893) American Calvinist theologian

Roman Catholic rival German versions of the Bible

Hostility, Books, Art, History

“It is, of course, written in Perl. Translation to C is left as an exercise for the reader.”

Larry Wall (1954) American computer programmer and author, creator of Perl

[7448@jpl-devvax.JPL.NASA.GOV, 1990]
Usenet postings, 1990

Exercises

“The state has to assist and must not constrict. In this spirit it has to be the gardener and not the fence. We should be confident that the people want to get [socially] involved and want to assume responsibility.”

Angela Merkel (1954) Chancellor of Germany

Der Staat muss fördern und darf nicht einschränken. In diesem Sinne muss er Gärtner sein und nicht Zaun. Wir sollten den Menschen zutrauen, dass sie sich engagieren und Verantwortung übernehmen wollen.
Interview in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (sueddeutsche.de) on May 20, 2006
2006

People, Confidence

“A litigant to winning so devotes his energies
That he never gives his neighbours or himself a moment’s rest,
But for every other pleasure he has neither ears nor eyes.”

Pietro Nelli (1672–1740) Italian painter

Un litigante è di vincer si ingordo,
Che non dà a se, o altrui pace o riposo,
Ma ad ogni altro piacer è cieco e sordo.
Satire, II., IX. — "Peccadigli degli Avvocati."
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 432.

Pleasure

“The visual power of the phonetic alphabet is the translate other languages into itself is part of its power to invade right hemisphere (oral) cultures.”

Marshall McLuhan (1911–1980) Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar-- a professor of English literature, a literary critic, and a …

Source: 1980s, Laws of Media: The New Science (with Eric McLuhan) (1988), p. 74

Parting

“Conceptual graphs are system of logic based on the existential graphs of Charles Sanders Peirce and the semantic networks of artificial intelligence. The purpose of the system is to express meaning in a form that is logically precise, humanly readable, and computationally tractable. With their direct mapping to language, conceptual graphs can serve as an intermediate language for translating computer-oriented formalisms to and from natural languages. With their graphic representation, they can serve as a readable, but design and specification language.”

John F. Sowa (1940) artificial intelligence researcher

Source: Conceptual graphs for knowledge representation, 1993, p. 3-51. cited in: Bernhard Ganter, Gerd Stumme, Rudolf Wille (2005) Formal Concept Analysis: Foundations and Applications. p. 87

Intelligence, Nature

“The chains of wedlock are so heavy that it takes two to carry them; sometimes three.”

Alexandre Dumas (1802–1870) French writer and dramatist, father of the homonym writer and dramatist

Les chaînes du mariage sont si lourdes qu'il faut être deux pour les porter; quelquefois trois. Attributed to Dumas in: Elizabeth Abbott, Une histoire des maîtresses http://books.google.gr/books?id=fEsPUICzDY4C&dq=, Les Éditions Fides, 2004, p. 16. Attributed

“I signaled to my host to try to have the philosophers expound on some aspect of their knowledge. As a good friend he immediately rose to the occasion. I won't go into the conversation that accompanied his request, and the difference between the comic and the serious was too slight to translate.”

Cyrano de Bergerac (1619–1655) French novelist, dramatist, scientist and duelist

The Other World (1657)

Knowledge

“Public utility is often served by the injury of individuals.”

Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac (1597–1654) French author, best known for his epistolary essays

L'utilité publique se fait sou vent du dommage des particuliers.
Le Prince (1631), Chap. XVII.
Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 101.

“Friendship between those of the same sex attains an erotic tone, which comes into consciousness, and which also occasionally increases to the point of desire. Here, for older medicine, was where pathology began, for older jurisprudence, where criminality began, without providing any reason for either.”

Hans Blüher (1888–1955) German journalist and writer

Source: The German Wandervogel Movement as Erotic Phenomenon: A Contribution to the Knowledge of Sexual Inversion (1914), p. 35.

Friendship, Sex

“Because you could not translate the word apartheid into the more universal language of English, the wrong connotation was given to it.”

P. W. Botha (1916–2006) South African prime minister

As cited in Dictionary of South African Quotations, Jennifer Crwys-Williams, Penguin Books 1994, p. 22

Universe

“"When I was born, God pointed at me and said “That’s the man"”

Romário (1966) Brazilian association football player

Quando eu nasci, Deus apontou o dedo em minha direção e disse: esse é o cara.
Source: esportes.terra.
Context: When he signed with Fluminense in 2002.

God

“You should write about me, just like you did about Degas (translation from the original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Jozef Israëls (1824–1911) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van de tekst van Jozef Israëls, in het Nederlands): Net zoals over
Remark of Israëls in a talk with the German painter Max Liebermann, c. 1899-1900, drinking coffee together in Scheveningen; as cited and translated by J. Sillevis and others, in exhibition catalog 'Lieberman en Holland, Haags Gemeentemuseum, Den Haag 1980, pp. 15-16
Quotes of Jozef Israels, 1871 - 1900

“…many questions about the phenomenon of Israel… Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist… I tell them to study the history of WWI and WWII. One of my students told me that during WWII, which more than tens of millions of people perished in, news about the war, was quickly disseminated by the warring parties. Each touted their victories and the most recent battlefront defeat of the other party. After the war they claimed that six million Jews had been killed. Six million people that were surely related to at least two million families. Again let us assume that these events are true. Does that logically translate into the establishment of the state of Israel in the Middle East or support for such a state? How can this phenomenon be rationalized or explained?”

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (1956) 6th President of the Islamic Republic of Iran

Paragraphs 8, 10-12
2006, Letter to George W. Bush, 2006

War, People, Family, History

“It's all about the atmosphere of nature, for sure, but I want the painting to arouse clarity, cheerfulness. When it is finished, then I have to live with it, that's why it must become a pleasant thing. Sun. Clarity. Never white-black, because there are so many shades in between! (translation from Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek, 2018)”

Gerrit Benner (1897–1981) Dutch painter

version in original Dutch (citaat van Gerrit Benner, in het Nederlands:) Het gaat om de sfeer van de natuur, zeker, maar ik wil dat het schilderij klaarte, vrolijkheid opwekt. Als zo'n ding af is, dan moet ik ermee leven, daarom moet het prettig zijn. Zon. Klaarte. Nooit wit-zwart, want daar zijn zoveel tinten tussen! quoted by Hans Redeker (before 1967), in Gerrit Benner; Meulenhoff, Amsterdam, 1967; as cited by Susan van den Berg in 'Benner en Bregman', website 'de Moanne' http://www.demoanne.nl/benner-en-bregman/, 1 Sept. 2008, note xx 1950 - 1980

Nature, Sun, Painting

“This long preamble just to tell you not to judge your own work as you are the last person to see it (with true eyes) – What you see neither redeems nor condemns it – All words used to explain or praise it are false translations of what is going on beyond sensations.
You are, as we all are, obsessed by the accumulation of principles or anti-principles which generally cloud your mind with their terminology and, without knowing it, you are a prisoner of what you think is a liberated education –
In your particular case, you are certainly the victim of the 'Ecole de Paris' [French abstract art movement which developed after world War 2. ], a joke that’s lasted for 60 years.”

Marcel Duchamp (1887–1968) French painter and sculptor

Quote in a letter to Jean Crotti (Duchamp's brother-in-law) and his sister Suzanne Duchamp, New York 17 Augustus 1952; as cited in The Duchamp Book, ed. Gavin Parkinson, Tate Publishing, London 2008 p. 167
1951 - 1968

War, World, Education, Art

“There is no muse of philosophy, nor is there one of translation.”

Walter Benjamin (1892–1940) German literary critic, philosopher and social critic (1892-1940)

"The Task of the Translator," translated by Harry Zohn

“I am not left winged, I am not right winged. I am straight forward.”

Rita Verdonk (1955) Dutch politician

Slogan used on Rita Verdonk's weblog http://www.ritaverdonk.net/ retrieved 25 November 2007.

“The moral of Katrina is mostly being missed. It is not just a failure of execution (William Kristol), or that bad things just happen (Laura Bush). It was not just indifference by the President, or a lack of accountability, or a failure of federal-state communication, or corrupt appointments in FEMA, or the cutting of budgets for fixing levees, or the inexcusable absence of the National Guard off in Iraq. It was all of these and more, but they are the effects, not the cause.
The cause was political through and through — a matter of values and principles. The progressive-liberal values are America's values, and we need to go back to them. The heart of progressive-liberal values is simple: empathy (caring about and for people) and responsibility (acting responsibly on that empathy). These values translate into a simple principle: Use the common wealth for the common good to better all our lives. In short, promoting the common good is the central role of government.”

George Lakoff (1941) American linguist

"The Post-Katrina Era" at Alternet.org (6 September 2005) http://www.alternet.org/story/25099/

People, Communication, Failure, Heart

“The German Reunification and unification of Europe are two sides of the same coin.”

Helmut Kohl (1930–2017) former chancellor of West Germany (1982-1990) and then the united Germany (1990-1998)

Die deutsche Einheit und die europäische Einigung sind zwei Seiten ein und derselben Medaille.
In a speech on the 15th party congress of the CDU, in Frankfurt an Main (June 17, 2002)

“Translation is at best an echo.”

George Borrow book Lavengro

Source: Lavengro (1851), Ch. 25

“And of me you ask which choice you should make?” said the translator’s voice.
“Yes,” I said.
There was the sound of rocks grinding, followed by a brief silence, and then: “The moral choice is obvious,” said the Wreed. “It always is.”
“And?” I said. “What is the moral choice?”
More sounds of rocks, then: “Morality cannot be handed down from an external source.” … “It must come from within.”
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”

Robert J. Sawyer book Calculating God

The Wreed wavered and vanished.
Source: Calculating God (2000), Chapter 32 (p. 309; ellipsis represents a minor elision of description)

Silence

“I am an unrepentant book lover, and so soaked am I in the love of books that I feel – poor twentieth-century shopkeeper that I am – I feel that Pliny is a man I know, for all the eighteen centuries and more that lie between us. Pliny used to say (you will see it in a translation I have on my shelves) that no book was so bad that some good might be got out of it, and that is my feeling. I – and Pliny – born and bred so differently, feel the same about books and it gives me a flattering sense of rightness – sitting here in this shop among books that Pliny could not have imagined – books written in a language which was not then evolved – the thought makes me feel thrilled. There is no other word for it, but I dare not tell it to anyone. It is an astonishing secret to me that I must enjoy alone.”

William Darling (politician) (1885–1962) Scottish politician

Source: The Bankrupt Bookseller (1947), p. 30

Love, Lie, Secret, Books

“I assume that a precisely defined, verifiable, executable, and translatable UML is a Good Thing and leave it to others to make that case… In the summer of 1999, the UML has definitions for the semantics of its components. These definitions address the static structure of UML, but they do not define an execution semantics. They also address (none too precisely) the meaning of each component, but there are "semantic variation points" which allow a component to have several different meanings. Multiple views are defined, but there is no definition of how the views fit together to form a complete model. When alternate views conflict, there is no definition of how to resolve them. There are no defined semantics for actions…
To determine what requires formalization, the UML must distinguish clearly between essential, derived, auxiliary, and deployment views. An essential view models precisely and completely some portion of the behavior of a subject matter, while a derived view shows some projection of an essential view…
All we need now is to make the market aware that all this is possible, build tools around the standards defined by the core, executable UML, and make it so…”

Stephen J. Mellor (1952) British computer scientist

Mellor in Andy Evans et al. (1999) " Advanced methods and tools for a precise UML http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.115.2039&rep=rep1&type=pdf." UML’99—The Unified Modeling Language. Springer Berlin Heidelberg. p. 709-714.

Behavior, Summer

“Whitehead and Russell… translate \vdash p imples q into the words 'it is asserted that p implies q'. But the phrase 'it is asserted' suggests an impersonal happening of assertions: 'it is asserted' as 'it is raining' or 'it happens'. The value of the assertion sign is lost if we allow ourselves to revert in our verbal translation of it to the muddle of a declaratory sentence which asserts itself or is impersonally asserted by nobody in particular.”

Michael Polanyi (1891–1976) Hungarian-British polymath

Source: Personal Knowledge (1958), p. 28

“Quote of Rembrandt's, from his short poem, 1634; on his own drawing of a lord with beard, very probably representing the court-master Burchard Grossmann in his 'album amicorum' (translation from the original Dutch: Anne Porcelijn)”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

1630 - 1640

Quotes, Drawing

“You've often heard me say – perhaps too often – that poetry is what is lost in translation. It is also what is lost in interpretation. That little poem means just what it says and it says what it means, nothing less but nothing more.”

Robert Frost The Road Not Taken

Robert Frost: A Backward Look, by Louis Untermeyer (1964), p. 18
1960s

“Nor let the critic, if he find the meaning of Camoens in some instances altered, imagine that he has found a blunder in the Translator. … It was not to gratify the dull few, whose greatest pleasure in reading a translation is to see what the author exactly says; it was to give a poem that might live in the English language which was the ambition of the Translator. … And the original is in the hands of the world.”

William Julius Mickle (1734–1788) British writer

Introduction (p. cli)
The Lusiad; Or, The Discovery of India: an Epic Poem (1776)

Pleasure, World, Imagination, Reading

“In my own field, the History of Art, it was Alois Riegl who, at the turn of the century, worked out his own translation of the Hegelian system into psychological terms.”

Ernst Gombrich (1909–2001) art historian

In Search of Cultural History (1969)

Art, History

“An Urdu translation of the work was published … at least two more editions came out in 1979 and 1981 respectively… [but] the account … is conspicuous by its absence in the 1981 edition.”

Harsh Narain (1921–1995) Indian writer

The Ayodhya temple-mosque dispute: Focus on Muslim sources (1993)

“Autograph inscription on Rembrandt's drawing of the old City hall of Amsterdam, 9 July 1652; Benesch 1278 (translation from the original Dutch: Anne Porcelijn)”

Rembrandt van Rijn (1606–1669) Dutch 17th century painter and etcher

Rembrandt made this drawing two days after the old Town-hall at Dam square in Amsterdam was burned out; the spotlight attracted a lot of attention and various artists have drawn the remains of the historic building. Two days after the fire, Rembrandt laid down the ruins of the building in a drawing. He made the sketch on the spot, standing or seated at (or in) the old daring building on the Dam, as he himself wrote in the inscription. http://remdoc.huygens.knaw.nl/#/document/remdoc/e1643 1640 - 1670

Drawing

“I will soon have finished another drawing [= watercolor], in the spirit as Den Tessaro [art-seller in Antwerp] wished another one, that is 'airy' and 'thin', with 'lots of space', etc.-. (translation from original Dutch: Fons Heijnsbroek)”

Willem Roelofs (1822–1897) Dutch painter and entomologist (1822-1897)

(original Dutch: citaat van Willem Roelofs, in het Nederlands:) Ik zal binnenkort eene andere teekening [= aquarel] gereed hebben, in den geest zoals Den Heer Tessaro [kunst-handelaar in Antwerpen] er nog een wenschte, namenlijk 'luchtig' en 'dun', met 'veel ruimte', etc.-.
In a letter to art-seller Frans Buffa in Amsterdam, 1874; ; as cited in Willem Roelofs 1822-1897 De Adem der natuur, ed. Marjan van Heteren & Robert-Jan te Rijdt; Thoth, Bussum - ISBN13 * 978 90 6868 4322, 2006, p. 57
1870's

Art, Drawing

“Elements of Gandhism were by and large inherent in my life style and mode of thinking even after I adopted Marxism. While expressing my ideological difference with Gandhism, I became a political activist who upheld the high values of Gandhism and tried to translate them in my personal lifestyle.”

E. M. S. Namboodiripad (1909–1998) Indian politician

[Namboodiripad, E. M. S., The Mahatma and the Ism, http://books.google.com/books?id=AAw59zNJDYoC, 2010, LeftWord Books, 978-81-87496-98-4, 10]

Life, Thinking, Personality

“I finally arrived here in 1968 with $20 in my pocket. What a special day it was. I remember I arrived here with empty pockets but full of dreams, full of determination, full of desire. The presidential campaign was in full swing. I remember watching the Nixon-Humphrey presidential race on TV. A friend of mine who spoke German and English translated for me. I heard Humphrey saying things that sounded like socialism, which I had just left. But then I heard Nixon speak. He was talking about free enterprise, getting the government off your back, lowering the taxes and strengthening the military. Listening to Nixon speak sounded more like a breath of fresh air. I said to my friend, I said, 'What party is he?”

Arnold Schwarzenegger (1947) actor, businessman and politician of Austrian-American heritage

My friend said, 'He's a Republican'. I said, 'Then I am a Republican'. And I have been a Republican ever since. Arrived as immigrant with only $20 in his pocket http://www.ontheissues.org/Celeb/Arnold_Schwarzenegger_Immigration.htm 2000s, Speech at the Republican National Convention (31 August 2004)

Dreams

“Sometimes politicians take the easy way out in their bid to remain popular by playing up religious and racial issues. This causes uneasy feelings among the people who may only be the followers and have no inkling about the issues being fanned.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

mysinchew.com http://www.mysinchew.com/node/67694 12/12/2011

People, Way, Feeling

“Sir John Mandeville [was] an encyclopedist whose mostly invented stories still ring true, thanks to his gift for writing the first realistic Western fiction since Petronius. We do not know who this man was or even what language he wrote in, but modern textual analysis suggests that he rarely left his study. Rather than travel, he scavenged and plagiarized the works of others, improving their prose as he claimed their discoveries. In a period of continental isolation, Mandeville satisfied Europe's appetite for news by making up an East that sounded real. In expanding editions and translations, his Voyages and Travels became the most popular prose book of the Middle Ages.”

John Mandeville (1300–1372) writer

Michael Wolfe One Thousand Roads to Mecca (New York: Grove Press, 1999) p. 75.
Criticism

Books, Age, Travel, Study

“Every age bears its fruits, it's all in knowing how to harvest them.”

Raymond Radiguet (1903–1923) French writer

Tout âge porte ses fruits, il faut savoir les cueillir.
Raymond Radiguet: Le bal du comte d'Orgel. Paris 1924. P. 15.

Age

“The most promising lines of development of theory in the sociological and most immediately related fields, particularly the psychological and cultural, therefore, seem to be two-fold. One major direction is the theoretical elaboration and refinement of structural-functional analysis of social systems, including the relevant problems of motivation and their relation to cultural patterns. In this process, the structure of social action provides a basic frame of reference, and aspects of it become of direct substantive importance at many specific points. The main theoretical task, however, is more than a refinement of the conceptual scheme of the presently reprinted book — it involves transition and translation to a different level and focus of theoretical systematization.”

Talcott Parsons (1902–1979) American sociologist

Preface second edition, 1949
The structure of social action (1937)

Books, Motivation, Problem

“This sketch of how consciousness fits into the wider universe supports a form of non-reductive, Reflexive Monism. Human minds, bodies and brains are embedded in a far greater universe. Individual conscious representations are perspectival. That is, the precise manner in which entities, events and processes are translated into experiences depends on the location in space and time of a given observer, and the exact mix of perceptual, cognitive, affective, social, cultural and historical influences which enter into the 'construction' of a given experience. In this sense, each conscious construction is private, subjective, and unique. Taken together, the contents of consciousness provide a view of the wider universe, giving it the appearance of a 3D phenomenal world. … However, such conscious representations are not the thing-itself. In this vision, there is one universe (the thing-itself), with relatively differentiated parts in the form of conscious beings like ourselves, each with a unique, conscious view of the larger universe of which it is a part. In so far as we are parts of the universe that, in turn, experience the larger universe, we participate in a reflexive process whereby the universe experiences itself.”

Max Velmans book Understanding Consciousness

Max Velmans (2009) Understanding Consciousness, Edition 2. Routledge/Psychology Press, p. 298

World, Support, Sense, Universe

“Even the wolves cease their depredations, when they have secured all the prey.”

Alessandro Pepoli (1757–1796) Italian writer

Si fermano anche i lupi quando hanno afferrato la preda.
La Scommessa, Act I., Sc. I. — (Il Marchese.). Translation reported in Harbottle's Dictionary of quotations French and Italian (1904), p. 417.

“When I was a few years, often approached the door of the room where my mother exactly practicing, listened to sounds and imagined this music.”

Łukasz Pawlikowski (1997) Polish cellist

Kiedy miałem kilka lat, często podchodziłem do drzwi pokoju, w którym akurat ćwiczyła mama, wsłuchiwałem się w dźwięki i wyobrażałem sobie tę muzykę. A little cellist from Krakow conquers the world, warszawa.naszemiasto.pl, 2008-04-02, Polish http://warszawa.naszemiasto.pl/archiwum/1664386,maly-wiolonczelista-z-krakowa-podbija-swiat,id,t.html,

Music, Imagination

“My desire for information was, however, too strong to be turned aside and often have I been sent away from a bookstall when the owner became offended at my standing reading, which I used to do until I was sent away… I used to borrow books from a man who kept a small shop… leaving a small sum as a deposit. At the age of twenty, Place had worked through the histories of Greece and Rome and some translated works of Greek and Roman writers.”

Francis Place (1771–1854) English social reformer

Source: The life of Francis Place, 1771-1854, 1898, p. 17

Books, Age, History, Strong

“The Japanese have a term called Ikigai. Ikigai is the Japanese translation of the French 'raison d’etre' or 'reason for being.' When Plato wrote about government, what Plato said was that the most preferred form of governor was what we know as the true statesman. -- The philosopher king who knows his place and his task. My purpose is to be a builder of new ideas and companies. I live to put new ideas together and advance the conversation. It is my Ikigai. I simply love to do it. There is nothing more exciting to me than helping new ideas spring up out of the ground.”

Robert Agresta (1983)

Public Release May, 2011, Politicker NJ

Love, Spring, Idea, Help

“Things we hope not for oftener come to pass than things we wish for. (translated by Thornton)”
Insperata accidunt magis saepe quam que speres.

Plautus Mostellaria

Act I, scene 3, line 42.
Variant translation: Things which you do not hope happen more frequently than things which you do hope. (translator unknown)
Mostellaria (The Haunted House)

Hope

“[Word-for-word translation]
O stranger, announce to the Lacadaemonians [Spartans] that here
We lie, to their words [or laws] obedient.”

Simonides of Ceos (-556–-468 BC) Ancient Greek musician and poet

Go, tell the Spartans, stranger passing by
That here, obedient to their laws, we lie.
Epitaph on the Cenotaph of Thermopylae, recorded by Herodotus.
There is a long unsolved dispute around the interpretation of the word rhemasi, such as laws, words or orders.
Variant translations:
Go, tell the Spartans, thou who passest by,
That here obedient to their laws we lie.
Stranger, go tell the men of Lacedaemon
That we, who lie here, did as we were ordered.
Stranger, bring the message to the Spartans that here
We remain, obedient to their orders.
Oh foreigner, tell the Lacedaemonians
That here we lie, obeying their words.
Go, tell the Spartans, passerby,
that here by Spartan law we lie.
Go, tell the Spartans
stranger passing by,
that here, obedient to Spartan law,
we dead of Sparta lie

Lie, Law

“As a monarch who was given the chance of age and experience, that is rather long, since before the nation achieves independence until now, for Us, there is one matter that is the most precious to this country and could not be sold which is unity.”

Abdul Halim of Kedah (1927–2017) King of Malaysia

State Banquet for the end of the tenure https://www.bharian.com.my/node/223125, 10/12/2016

Age, Chance, Country

Quotes about translation page 8

Quotes about translation
page 8