Useful Latin Quotes & Sayings

The Latin word for sausage was botulus, from which English gets two words. One of them is the lovely botuliform, which means sausage-shaped and is a more useful word than you might think. The other word is botulism.
Sausages may taste lovely, but it's usually best not to ask what's actually in them. Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it was a sausage-maker who disposed of the body. — Mark Forsyth

There is a satisfactory and available power in every one to learn drawing if he wishes, just as nearly all persons have the power of learning French, Latin or arithmetic, in a decent and useful degree. — John Ruskin

It is one of the supreme ironies of history that the blessed birth of an only son should have proved the mortal blow. Even as the saluting cannons boomed and the flags waved, Fate had prepared a terrible story. Along with the lost battles and sunken ships, the bombs, the revolutionaries and their plots, the strikes and revolts, Imperial Russia was toppled by a tiny defect in the body of a little boy. — Robert K. Massie

There is, however, another subject on which the Queen feels most strongly, and that is this horrible, brutalizing, un-Christian-like vivisection ... It must really not be permitted. It is a disgrace to a civilized country. — Queen Victoria

I've written 26 books and novellas as Molly O'Keefe. I moved through three different Harlequin lines and into single-title romance with Bantam writing under that name. Fun fact: It's not my name, and it's not even one I picked. — Molly O'Keefe

The word 'question' is derived from the Latin quaerere 'to seek,' which is the same root as the word for quest. A creative life is a continued quest, and good questions are useful guides. — Paul A. Kaufman

I am not of the opinion generally entertained in this country [England], that man lives by Greek and Latin alone; that is, by knowing a great many words of two dead languages, which nobody living knows perfectly, and which are of no use in the common intercourse of life. Useful knowledge, in my opinion, consists of modern languages, history, and geography; some Latin may be thrown into the bargain, in compliance with custom, and for closet amusement. — Lord Chesterfield

Making a musical television show was always the ultimate dream. But I really didn't think it would ever happen. Because who's going to make a musical television show? — Rachel Bloom

The sea change that has come is the information age. We don't have to just read The New York Times anymore. We can pull up something on the Internet and get any news that we like. — Pete Du Pont

I have a different constitution. I have a different brain; I have a different heart; I got tiger blood, man. — Charlie Sheen

If something you desire is not happening, you are not emotionally or mentally ready for it yet. Make your mental adjustment in the now, and the reality will follow. — Russell Anthony Gibbs

Did I know any useful spells? Why no, I sure didn't. But go on, ask me the Latin name of, like, foxglove. Digitalis purpurea. You're welcome. — Cate Tiernan

Since my high school years, I have been interested in history, especially in Roman history, a topic on which I have read rather extensively. The Latin that goes with this kind of interest proved useful when I had to generate a few terms and names for cell biology. — George Emil Palade

He, who has blended the useful with the sweet, has gained every point . — Horace

A lot of what I know as a filmmaker is because of hockey. That's teamwork, and being able to collaborate with people, and be creative with them, and get the most out of everybody. Everyone's got different talents, and you've got to bring out the best of everybody, and use your strengths and work together, and try and evolve it rather than do what was done before you, and to push into new areas. — Gabe Polsky

I've been in motorsport my whole life since I was eight years of age. — Nigel Mansell

Although I was four years at the University [of Wisconsin], I did not take the regular course of studies, but instead picked out what I thought would be most useful to me, particularly chemistry, which opened a new world, mathematics and physics, a little Greek and Latin, botany and and geology. I was far from satisfied with what I had learned, and should have stayed longer. — John Muir

All learned people learn Latin. It's bound to come in useful. Fairy tales, on the other hand, are about real life. — Monica Furlong

The river itself has no beginning or end. In its beginning, it is not yet the river; in the end it is no longer the river. What we call the headwaters is only a selection from among the innumerable sources which flow together to compose it. At what point in its course does the Mississippi become what the Mississippi means? — T. S. Eliot

You go on, I presume, with your latin Exercises: and I wish to hear of your beginning upon Sallust who is one of the most polished and perfect of the Roman Historians, every Period of whom, and I had almost said every Syllable and every Letter is worth Studying.
In Company with Sallust, Cicero, Tacitus and Livy, you will learn Wisdom and Virtue. You will see them represented, with all the Charms which Language and Imagination can exhibit, and Vice and Folly painted in all their Deformity and Horror.
You will ever remember that all the End of study is to make you a good Man and a useful Citizen. - This will ever be the Sum total of the Advice of your affectionate Father,
John Adams — John Adams