Quotes From Latin Class

1. "All historical analogies are always false because everything is a unique case." -- Dr. Karl Maurer (DKM)
2. "Why does Vergil end Book I [of the Georgics] so apocalyptically when it begins so humorously?" -- DKM
3. "Do ut des" I give so that you might give. -- The Roman religion
4. "Who could read stupid, stupid prose after this [Vergil's Georgics]? It's stupid and flat...." -- DKM
5. "The Roman poets...they are about as important as the plumber." -- DKM
6. "This poetry is more important than anything that exists." -- DKM
7. "When a person writes bad poems, that's a poison that corrupts that person's soul." -- DKM
8. "Vergil and Horace invented the modern Romantic poet." -- DKM
9. "The foot in the line of [Roman] verse is the footstep when you're plowing the field." -- DKM
10. "An outline is always a bit of BS before you do anything, but it forces you to think continuously...." -- DKM
11. "'tuneful sounds'...I don't like that [translation]. It's so...stupid." -- DKM
12. "We could say it's an ablative of attendant circumstances. That's what you always say when you don't know." -- DKM
13. "Say it so that it says what it means." -- DKM
14. "If you think about it...it's like Hell!" -- DKM [on the perfect life of bees according to Vergil]
15. "Abstractions are impoverished language." -- DKM
16. "The standards in Classical scholarship are suffocatingly strict. They demand that you read absolutely everything written about your topic." -- DKM
17. "Maybe he put that there because it worked with the meter" -- Austin; [in response] "Never! You never say that about Vergil!" -- DKM
18. "Bloody, bloody, bloody hard Latin." -- DKM [on Propertius]
19. "Propertius should have been strangled when he was sixteen before he had a chance to commit all his grammatical ambiguities." -- DKM
20. "Carptim: literally, 'pluckedly' from 'carpo.'" -- Dr. Grace Starry West
21. "Does it smell sort of like garbage in here? No, I don't mean it's you guys...." -- Dr. Grace Starry West
22. "It's so beautiful.... It's so stupid to point out every way in which it's beautiful." -- DKM
23. "This passage is very elegant and beautiful verse, but it's not poetry." -- DKM
24. "Vergil's confusing the physical and the psychic. It's what he does better than practically any poet." -- DKM
25. "Vergil loved him [Gallus] more than any little teeny loves her rock star." -- DKM
26. "He's raping that word a litle bit, 'animi.'" -- DKM
27. "In pure evil that's unmotivated, there's a touch of curiosity: let's see what'll happen, what's it like?" -- DKM
28. "The principal parts are the most boring thing on earth! What shall we compare it to? They're not that boring anyway." -- DKM
29. "'Of' in the sense of 'of.'" -- Dr. David Davies (DDD)
30. "Let me make it concrete in more theological terms." -- DDD
31. "You're right on the mark...let me just make an adustment." -- DDD
32. "It was completely dark, and it might as well be daylight." -- DDD
33. "That's not even funny: it's supposed to be beautiful in Latin." -- Dr. Lee Michael Fratantuono (DLMF)
34. "In English, the future perfect is moribund." -- DLMF
35. "With the whatever having been whatevered." -- DLMF
36. "In the case of Grammars, bigger is always better." -- DLMF
37. "The goal in life should be to find retainers who will do the annoying things for you." -- DLMF
38. "It's not divine providence Mr. [name]. God does not care about such things." DLMF [on American citizenship]
39. "People like that, if they bring their shotguns some day, you want to be the one they spare." -- DLMF
40. "In centuries gone by, that's what people had to do: they had to defend the free world and learn Latin." -- DLMF
41. "She's running off to become a huntress, which is what all the weird women do in antiquity." -- DLMF
42. "He's Greek; that's one of his problems." -- DKM
43. "The S.O.B. Caesar." -- DKM
44. "There surrounds him a murk of non-being. That's the way I think of Atticus." -- DKM
45. "The Gracchi make your head spin a little bit...." --DKM
46. "A fat pig, eats its piggy fill of...15 minutes of our class, it just gobbles up." -- DKM [on quizes]
47. "If you can't win your tribe, you may as well lie down and die." -- DKM [on Roman elections]
48. "Napoleon was one of the biggest jackasses that ever lived. It's unbearable to read about, he's such an ass." -- DKM
49. "He was reasonable as far as liberals ever are, because if you scratch a liberal hard enough, you'll always find a fascist." -- DLMF
50. "You can rule by sheer violence for only a limited time." -- DKM
51. "It would be hard to compete with plays against a guy who's having wild beast hunts each day." -- DKM
52. "Promise them anything: your wife, your house, your horse, because you're not going to have to fulfill it." -- DKM [on Roman political campaigns]
53. "I want more proof than Plutarch's wretched words." -- DKM [on evidence of Cicero's cowardice]
54. "He's [Cicero's] not like Octavian, who went and hid in a marsh during the battle of Phillipi." -- DKM
55. "Mr [name], these people founded Western Civilization; the verdict is still out on you." -- DLMF [on the Greeks]
56. "Any word with the diminutive '-ling' is good, because it makes us think of halflings and other creatures of middle earth." -- DLMF
57. "Lyric choruses, they're lyric hallucinogenic trips...you have to connect the dots in a kaleidoscope...the chorus was the reason these things were written, and the rest of the stuff just sort of fills in space." -- DLMF
58. "Just remember Friday at 10 am, power comes from the barrel of a gun." -- DLMF
59. "Apposition. Wheelock. Chapter something." -- DLMF
60. "In the forest you find purity, in the forest you find truth, in the forest you find Artemis, you do not find Aphrodite...." -- DLMF
61. "Excluding Catholicism, there is nothing in life more noble, more solemn than Greek poetry." -- DLMF
62. "Birds in a flock make this horrible sound that makes you think that Daphne Demorrier's vision was true, and one day they will destroy us all." -- DLMF
63. "All you need to excell in the world are the teachings of the classics and the Catholic church." -- DLMF
64. "Evil? Evil has bad connotations in English. We think of demons or something." -- DLMF [on the translation of improbus]
65. "A bovine bullock? What in the name of all that is holy is a bovine bullock? Is that something like a feline cat or a canine dog?" -- DLMF [on the translation of iuncto bove]
66. "What's a pompous name for a change of construction? Anacolouthon. We'll call it anacolouthon." -- DKM
67. "It's lovely to see him [Caesar] spend money. It gives one pleasure to see these rivers of money pouring out." -- DKM
68. "He's like one of the most dazzling people who ever lived, only, they were quite right to stab him to death. You just can't siberian tiger in among the sheep and expect him to act like a good little sheep." -- DKM
69. "They are all weapons of mass destruction: you would not like Sarin nerve gas any more than you would like radiation." -- DLMF [on Iraq weapons capabilities]
70. "What do you think Russia's response will be?" -- Student questioner; "What will the Third World country with 4,000 nukes do if we dare to do anything they don't like?" -- DLMF [on war with Iraq]
71. "Some people are convinced by the Iraqis. Barbara Streisand is convinced by the Iraqis. If my career were in her position, I too might be convinced.... She needs to find a new audience." -- DLMF [on opposition to war with Iraq]
72. "The French have a history of bluster to collapse, from the Maginot line to [...]. They have a comment all the time, but that's different from actually being important." -- DLMF [on French non-involvement in the Iraq situation]
73. " [...] The French, the Germans, and other assorted European Union Euro-carrion countries." -- DLMF [on Europe]
74. "Are Libya and North Korea still against a U.S. attack on Iraq?" -- Student questioner; "Besides my urge to say 'Who cares...?'" -- DLMF
75. "He [Christ] did not advocate pacifism as the only morally acceptable path." -- DLMF [on the morality of war with Iraq]
76. "The people who say that Christ wouldn't want us to attack Iraq usually don't invoke His name under any other cirumstances." -- DLMF
77. "I would like Mr. Gore to tell me the results of the stock market the day a mushroom cloud appears over New York." -- DLMF
78. "The world is full of foos so that we may recognize genius all the better." -- DLMF
79. "Sweater vests? You look like a British schoolboy. Cricket anyone?" -- DLMF
80. "I think few phrases are as pleasing in Latin as odisse placuit [it has pleased to hate]." -- DLMF
81. "I used to help unfortunates when I was in college, but I sollicited money for it. It wasn't charity, but it was prophitable." -- DLMF [on tutoring]
82. "Begone, sunlight and joy. Come, darkness and drear. Fill our hearts with your despair." -- DLMF [on a rainy day]
83. "Rhetoric always wins the day." -- DLMF
84. "Alright, any other points on absolutely nothing?" -- DLMF
85. "These reindeer...sort of has a sinister tone to it." -- DLMF [on Santa Claus]
86. "Miss Mull, I think it's in the Eta Sigma Phi constitution that one shall not help one's neighbor, for such is a Christian thing, not a pagan." -- DLMF
87. "If you ever want to invest in a grammar, don't buy that musty old Gildersleeve's; get Woodcock: you can get it in a nice paperback." -- DKM
88. "They sperant omnia nobis [hope for all things from us]? oooh, that's so unAmerican. I don't hope for anything from Bill Gates. I just don't care if he lives or dies." -- DKM [on the state of poor Romans in relation to wealthy Romans in the Republic]
89. "This is not a well-written sentence. Whenever you feel like stopping and taking a rest, you can stop and curse Cicero three times." -- DKM [on a sentence in the Pro Murena]
90. "This woman will never become a scholar...a scullery maid, perhaps." -- DLMF
91. "Reminders of death are good...done in moderation, of course." -- DLMF [on sickness]
92. "Some people seem to think that the texts we read in the Classics department were handed down to us in the way Joseph Smith in a delusional fit thought the Book of Mormon was handed down to him. He was an unmitigated idiot." -- DLMF [on the uncertainty of textual traditions]
93. "The Christ I worship would not have appreciated the traffic. He would have done something about that." -- DLMF [on the traffic at Texas Stadium caused by Billy Graham]
94. "Where does helping people get us, Mr. [name]? Nowhere." -- DLMF
95. "Learn to be a drone. Accept more." -- DLMF
96. "I'm sick. Don't argue." -- DLMF
97. "What I have done today is just as when a mastadon charges and gores one of the hunters." -- DLMF [on the first ever human use of the metaphor]

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Last updated 11/4/02


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