Quotes on Latin

By the way, were we to find life-forms on Venus, we would probably call them Venutians, just as people from Mars would be Martians. But according to rules of Latin genitives, to be “of Venus” ought to make you a Venereal. Unfortunately, medical doctors reached that word before astronomers did. Can’t blame them, I suppose. Venereal disease long predates astronomy, which itself stands as only the second oldest profession.

People have been warning us that language was going to the dogs ever since Latin started turning into French. Yet the dogs in question never seem to emerge yelping on the horizon.

Latin America, for the first time in 500 years, is moving towards a degree of independence.

You, boy, who owe everything to a name

War is sweet for those who haven't experienced it.

The mad is either insane or he is composing verses.

"...piling up zeros in your bank account, or cars in your driveway, won't in and of itself make you successful. Rather, true success is based on a constant flow of giving and recieving. In fact, if you look up affluence in the dictionary, you'll see its root is a Latin phrase meaning "to flow with abundance". So in order to be truly affluent, you must always let what you have recieved flow back into the world."

So potent was religion in persuading to evil deeds.

First of all, the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.

Others may fashion more smoothly images of bronze (I for one believe it), evoke living faces from marble, plead causes better, trace with a wand the wanderings of the heavens and foretell the rising of stars. But you, Roman, remember to rule the peoples with power (these will be your arts); impose the habit of peace, spare the vanquished and war down the proud!

The former colonies, in Latin America in particular, have a better chance than ever before to overcome centuries of subjugation, violence and foreign intervention, which they have so far survived as dependencies with islands of luxury in a sea of misery.

The voice of the people is the voice of humbug.

Surrealism comes from the reality of Latin America.

Fascism is a worldwide disease. Its greatest threat to the United States will come after the war, either via Latin America or within the United States itself.

If a statement is untrue, it is not the more respectable because it has been said in Latin.

One sees in Latin America, and also elsewhere, among many Catholics a certain schizophrenia between individual and public morality.

There is a lovely root to the word humiliation - from the latin word humus, meaning soil or ground. When we are humiliated, we are in effect returning to the ground of our being.

By being so long in the lowest form [at Harrow] I gained an immense advantage over the cleverer boys. . . . I got into my bones the essential structure of the ordinary British sentence - which is a noble thing. Naturally I am biased in favor of boys learning English; I would make them all learn English: and then I would let the clever ones learn Latin as an honor, and Greek as a treat.

The Latin root of the word 'politics' means 'of the people.' Politics is about something bigger than electoral politics; in that sense, I feel like I'm already involved.

Devising a vocabulary for gardening is like devising a vocabulary for sex. There are the correct Latin names, but most people invent euphemisms. Those who refer to plants by Latin name are considered more expert, if a little pedantic.

I must try and break through the cliches about Latin America. Superpowers and other outsiders have fought over us for centuries in ways that have nothing to do with our problems. In reality we are all alone.