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Thread: favourite latin quote

  1. #1
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Lightbulb favourite latin quote

    looking to read some so could you list them here
    thank you
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  2. #2
    Registered User kev67's Avatar
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    De gustibus non est disputandum - There is no accounting for taste. If I ran a pub, this motto would be on the sign.
    According to Aldous Huxley, D.H. Lawrence once said that Balzac was 'a gigantic dwarf', and in a sense the same is true of Dickens.
    Charles Dickens, by George Orwell

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    Barba philosophum non facit. A beard does not a philosopher make.

  4. #4
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    Barba philosophum non facit. A beard does not a philosopher make.
    I dont get this one sorry Pompey. ??
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    I dont get this one sorry Pompey. ??
    It means just because someone grows a beard (as philosophers used to do in antiquity), it doesn't necessarily make him an intellectual. In other words, there's more to wisdom than affectation. I used archaic English word order in my translation, which probably accounts for your confusion. Sorry.

    On another topic, I've never read Harry Potter, but I've heard the motto of his school is: draco dormiens numquam titillandus [est]. It means: a sleeping dragon must never be tickled. That's pretty good too.

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    It means just because someone grows a beard (as philosophers used to do in antiquity), it doesn't necessarily make him an intellectual. In other words, there's more to wisdom than affectation. I used archaic English word order in my translation, which probably accounts for your confusion. Sorry.

    On another topic, I've never read Harry Potter, but I've heard the motto of his school is: draco dormiens numquam titillandus [est]. It means: a sleeping dragon must never be tickled. That's pretty good too.
    haha I was dragged to the cinema to watch the very first Harry Potter movie and I must admit I was taken aback I did not know what to make of it.
    that was the first and the last of Harry Potter experience I had ever encountered. In other words I am not a fan.

    a question:
    why do you think that is pretty good about the dragon? just curious
    Last edited by cacian; 06-17-2018 at 09:22 AM.
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    haha I was dragged to the cinema to watch the very first Harry Potter movie and I must admit I was taken aback I did not what to make of it.
    that was the first and the last of Harry Potter experience I had ever encountered. In other words I am not a fan.
    I saw the first movie as well, or at least I bought a ticket. But as I watched, a deep and enchanted sleep fell over me. I didn't bother with the rest of the movies. But I don't begrudge the Harry Potter novels to those who like them. They turned a generation of kids onto reading. Some of Harry's merry band of wizards surely went on to read grown up books. That's great. I feel the same way about Twilight, The Hunger Games, and all the other nonsense you couldn't get me to read with a crowbar. To each his own.

    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    a question:
    why do you think that is pretty good about the dragon? just curious
    Well, the Latin itself is fantastical sounding. Rowling could have used the more pedestrian Noli/Nolite titillare draco dormiens (Don't tickle a sleeping dragon), but numquam and titillandus produce a grander, more fabulous feeling--good for the kind of fiction she is writing. Even the form of titillandus is a kind of flourish. It is a (none too common) future passive participle reminiscent of the passive periphrastic in the more famous Carthego delenda est. And the whole thing is funny/silly in a Monty Python sort of way. Who would want to tickle a dragon?
    Last edited by Pompey Bum; 06-17-2018 at 08:10 AM.

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    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    I saw the first movie as well, or at least I bought a ticket. But as I watched, a deep and enchanted sleep fell over me. I didn't bother with the rest of the movies. But I don't begrudge the Harry Potter novels to those who like them. They turned a generation of kids onto reading. Some of Harry's merry band of wizards surely went on to read grown up books. That's great. I feel the same way about Twilight, The Hunger Games, and all the other nonsense you couldn't get me to read with a crowbar. To each his own.



    Well, the Latin itself is fantastical sounding. Rowling could have used the more pedestrian Noli/Nolite titillare draco dormiens (Don't tickle a sleeping dragon), but numquam and titillandus produce a grander, more fabulous feeling--good for the kind of fiction she is writing. Even the form of titillandus is a kind of flourish. It is a (none too common) future passive participle reminiscent of the passive periphrastic in the more famous Carthego delenda est. And the whole thing is funny/silly in a Monty Python sort of way. Who would want to tickle a dragon?
    I wouldn't
    Month Python however is hilarious very funny
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  9. #9
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    I found this quote but I am not sure I understand what it actually mean properly...
    non sequiturs
    has anyone here ever has to use this phrase?
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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    Quote Originally Posted by cacian View Post
    I found this quote but I am not sure I understand what it actually mean properly...
    non sequiturs
    has anyone here ever has to use this phrase?
    Non sequitur means "It does not follow" in Latin. But English uses it as a noun meaning a kind of logical inconsistency. This, for example, is a non sequitur: Stalin had a big mustache, Stalin was a murderous dictator, so anyone with a big mustache is a murderous dictator. The "s" at the end of non sequiturs just means the English noun version is being used in the plural (as in: "Please, give me no more of your silly non sequiturs!").

    Hope that helped.
    Last edited by Pompey Bum; 06-21-2018 at 08:40 AM.

  11. #11
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    Non sequitur means "It does not follow" in Latin. But English uses it as a noun meaning a kind of logical inconsistency. This, for example, is a non sequitur: Stalin had a big mustache, Stalin was a murderous dictator, so anyone with a big mustache is a murderous dictator. The "s" at the end of non sequiturs just means the English noun version is being used in the plural (as in: "Please, give me no more of your silly non sequiturs!").

    Hope that helped.
    great thank you Pompey that makes sense know. Your example of Staling made it clear. cheers for that
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

  12. #12
    confidentially pleased cacian's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Pompey Bum View Post
    Non sequitur means "It does not follow" in Latin. But English uses it as a noun meaning a kind of logical inconsistency. This, for example, is a non sequitur: Stalin had a big mustache, Stalin was a murderous dictator, so anyone with a big mustache is a murderous dictator. The "s" at the end of non sequiturs just means the English noun version is being used in the plural (as in: "Please, give me no more of your silly non sequiturs!").

    Hope that helped.
    Great thank you Pompey that makes sense now. Your example of Stalin made it clear. Cheers for that!!
    it may never try
    but when it does it sigh
    it is just that
    good
    it fly

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