This site and its twitter feed is three years old today. We have passed from diapers (nappies in the UK!) and a liquid diet to full sentences and a different kind of liquid diet. Here are some quotations from our first few months.
The first post we ever put up:
Homer, Iliad 22.304-5
“May I not die without a fight and without glory but after doing something big for men to come to learn about”
μὴ μὰν ἀσπουδί γε καὶ ἀκλειῶς ἀπολοίμην,
ἀλλὰ μέγα ῥέξας τι καὶ ἐσσομένοισι πυθέσθαι.
A good one for Halloween:
“No one can wear a mask for very long; affectation soon returns to true nature”
nemo enim potest personam diu ferre, ficta cito in naturam suam recidunt
And this made an appearance again in our aggregation of Seneca quotes.
A reminder to carpere diem, but in Greek:
Semonides, Fragment 3
“We have ample time to be dead yet we live our few years badly”
πολλὸς γὰρ ἥμιν ἐστι τεθνάναι χρονος
ζῶμεν δ᾿ ἀριθμῷ παῦρα κακῶς ἔτεα
One of our many lines about friendship:
Sallust, Catilinae coniuratio 20.4
“Wanting the same thing and also not wanting the same thing: this, ultimately, is true friendship”
idem velle atque idem nolle, ea demum firma amicitia est
Proof that U2 plagiarizes:
Martial, Epigrams 12.46.2
“I can’t live with you or without you”
nec tecum possum vivere nec sine te
A necessary does of humility:
Heraclitus, Fragment 40
“Knowing much doesn’t teach you how to think.”
πολυμαθίη νόον ἔχειν οὐ διδάσκει.
Existential Angst:
Pindar, Pythian 8.95
“What is a person? What is not a person? Man is a dream of a shadow”
τί δέ τις; τί δ’ οὔ τις; σκιᾶς ὄναρ / ἄνθρωπος.
Pithy Rumsfeldian Response:
Tacitus, Agricola 30.4
“Every unknown is overblown”
omne ignotum pro magnifico est
Because we still don’t understand this:
Pisander, fr. 9 (Hesychius 683)
“You can’t reason with Centaurs”
νοῦς οὐ παρὰ Κενταύροισι
Because to err is human:
Cicero, Philippics 12.5
“All men make mistakes; but it is fools who persist in them”
cuiusvis hominis est errare; nullius nisi insipientis perseverare in errore
This is for Cicero and Seneca who came to unhappy ends:
Sophocles, Electra 1007-8
“Death isn’t the most hateful thing. Worse is when someone wants to die but cannot.”
οὐ γὰρ θανεῖν ἔχθιστον, ἀλλ᾽ ὅταν θανεῖν
χρῄζων τις εἶτα μηδὲ τοῦτ᾽ ἔχῃ λαβεῖν.
A rejected motto:
Ovid, Ars Amatoria 1.159
“Trivialities occupy fickle minds”
para leves capiunt animos
From a quotable but less well-known sage:
Publilius Syrus, Sententiae M.54
“A bad plan is one that can’t be changed”
malum est consilium quod mutari non potest
The eternal troll of anonymous wit:
CIL IV, 1904
“I am amazed, wall, that you have not fallen in ruins,
you who bear the weight of so many boring inscriptions.”
admiror, paries, te non cecidisse ruinis,
qui tot scriptorum taedia sustineas.
Something that may or may not be true about quotation:
Horace, Ars Poetica 309
“The origin and source of good writing is good judgment”.
scribendi recte sapere est et principium et fons.
As good a way to start as to end:
Parmenides, fr. 6.16
“The path of all things goes backwards.”
…πάντων δὲ παλίντροπός ἐστι κέλευθος.
Thanks to everyone who has read, commented and retweeted over the past three years!
Πόλλ’ ἀγαθὰ γένοιτό ὑμῖν!