Noli turbare circulos meos

After receiving praise for something they did:

“You forget the greatest thing about me, that no Athenian was ever put to mourning because of me.”

I bet it’s true of most children. It was said by Pericles, though this is paraphrased. Original: “οὐδεὶς γάρ,” ἔφη, “δι’ ἐμὲ τῶν ὄντων Ἀφηναίων μέλαν ἱμάτιον περιεβάλετο.”

Noli turbare circulos meos

Possibly not even the coolest thing he ever said! I mean, it might spring from my line of trade but

There are some, king Gelon, who think that the number of the sand is infinite in multitude; and I mean by the sand not only that which exists about Syracuse and the rest of Sicily but also that which is found in every region whether inhabited or uninhabited[…]. But I will try to show you by means of geometrical proofs, which you will be able to follow, that, of the numbers named by me and given in the work which I sent to Zeuxippus, some exceed not only the number of the mass of sand equal in magnitude to the Earth filled up in the way described, but also that of the mass equal in magnitude to the universe.

is pretty cool, as addresses to king go. Harder to use as a snap retort to your mother, though.

How about Diogenes of Sinope to Alexander:
Stand out of my light!

(These comebacks won’t seem nearly as impressive when she has to explain them to the other 8-10 year olds… or her teacher for that matter!)

This is a great thread. It’s like the John Charity Spring Guide to Childrearing.

My 2.5 year old son likes to construct towers and structures and then proceed to destroy them, so that no two blocks remain stacked. Thus I’m trying to get him to declare “Carthago delenda est” beforehand.

“Eppure si muove.”

I spend far too much of my time trying to work that into conversations.

I worry that if you aim for “Go tell the Spartans” you might end up with “This is Spartaaaaa!”

This story will be made perfect if inspiration ever strikes Zoe while she’s taking a bath, with the appropriate results.

just to reassure Bob McManus that I really am, above all, concerned to suck up to Jonah Goldberg

Actually, now is his chance to impart some quotable Sorel and Blanqui to the children.

I hate to be all contrarian, but it might cause problems if you use your education to arm your child with esoteric barbs (at least for eight-year-olds). These are all witty, funny things to say and hear (especially for any adults listening), but she’s trying to navigate delicate social rules and this is almost certainly not a part of the dynamic she’s trying to figure out (if all the parents do this with their kids, I guess go ahead.) Not to mention, it’s absolutely no fun to be on the humiliating end of this. It gives your daughter liscence to embarrass anyone who offends her by showing how much better and smarter she is. I’m not saying she should take meanness lying down, but you can communicate that you will not tolerate pettiness or bullying without invoking Sparta.

…just to reassure Bob McManus that I really am, above all, concerned to suck up to [Republican scum]

Paul Krugman has a new book out, and is even willing to debate [wingnut scum] on TV to promote his new book, because any publicity is useful. Paul Krugman is a good guy, and roughly on my side, so I am happy to help his NEW BOOK get a little attention. And I am not even getting paid to do it!

Oh and the title of Krugman’s new book? End This Depression Now

When asked to pick up her room: “Adde parvum parvo magnus acervus erit” – Ovid (adding little to a little you get a big pile).

I was educating my son on what I thought was a fairly straightforward ethical rule. After mulling it over a bit, he said, “You know, Dad, I’ve been thinking about it and I’ve decided you’re full of shit.”

That gets a grown-up’s attention.

To continue the nautical theme started upthread and handy in this country for a female of any age: John Paul Jones- I have not yet begun to fight.

“Si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses”

My advice is to not impart sayings that are facetious contortions of existing canonical sayings until the child is well-versed in the canonical sayings. When I was that age my sixth-grade teacher introduced me to the malapropic phrase “I respect that remark,” and I used it religiously all that school year with no awareness whatsoever that it was a derivative of the corresponding bonapropic saying “I resent that remark” — until I deployed it earnestly in a contentious family conversation and left my parents doubled over laughing and gasping for air for what felt like a solid five minutes.

(In my defense, quite a lot of sayings make no literal sense.)

I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of this, which this margin is too narrow to contain.

I pulled that trick in tenth grade by changing the margins to be about three inches wide so that the statement of the problem took up the entire page. The red-pen response from the instructor was something like “If your proof of this statement can’t fit within these margins, then something must have gone severely wrong somewhere in your proof!” (It was glorious. Had it taped to my computer monitor for years. It really is widely applicable.)

oderint, dum metuant? All right, maybe not appropriate.

But of course, everyone has to say “forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit” once in a while.

I don’t know about old Greek and Latin stuff, but I was particularly proud of my 9 year old today when I was expressing irritation at the way she was demanding answers to impossible questions and she said, “Mama, I just like to ask rhetorical questions sometimes.”

Those Samians. Always four words where just one would do.

I’m not one for Latinisms, but I really like Division Commander-General Tony McAuliffe’s canonical “Nuts!”

I also like “I’ve been called worse things by better people” as a generic response to name-calling.

@ 12 (Carthago delenda est) – to make it more impressive, use the more elegant ACI (carthaginem esse delendam) – but your kid will only be a true nerd if she is able to point out that this actually isn’t a Cato quote, but a quote most likely reconstructed from Plutarch’s greek account (who himself relied on Pliny and/or Livy) in the 4th century AD.
http://www.jstor.org/stable/3289867

I also like “I’ve been called worse things by better people” as a generic response to name-calling.

It’s a bit hard to work out exactly how to do it in different conversations, but I like to put this more like Epictetus did: “If someone reports back to you that so-and-so is saying back things about you, do not reply to them, but answer, “Obviously he didn’t know my other bad characteristics, since otherwise he wouldn’t have just mentioned these.”

‘A wise man associating with the vicious becomes an idiot, a dog traveling with good men becomes a rational being.’

The next time she sees someone reading a Jonah Goldberg article

“If”, replied the Spartan.

Don’t know how to say it in the original.

I always liked Kurt Vonnegut’s response to his wife that he should just buy 100 envelopes and lock them in the closest to save himself a trip to the shop every other day. Unfortunately the situation doesn’t arise very often where it can be repeated verbatim, but there a lot of good parts to it.
(Felix -thats hilarious, I might use it myself, but promise to give the source. Patrick 28- I wouldnt get disheartend. I tell my father that everytime I see him)

“I’m going to have a hell of a good time in the process of buying one envelope. I meet a lot of people. And, see some great looking babes. And a fire engine goes by. And I give them the thumbs up. And, and ask a woman what kind of dog that is. And, and I don’t know. The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around. And, of course, the computers will do us out of that. And, what the computer people don’t realize, or they don’t care, is we’re dancing animals. You know, we love to move around. And, we’re not supposed to dance at all anymore.”

“Todo el mundo es como Dios lo hizo, y a veces peor.” (Everyone is as God made him, and sometimes worse.) – Lazarillo de Tormes

“We have to believe in free will, there’s no choice.” – Isaac Bashevis Singer?

“Kill them all; God will select.” – Abbot Arnold de Citeaux (Siege of Beziers, July 1209)

“Albert, stop telling God what to do.” – Niels Bohr

“I didn’t do it, nobody saw me, you can’t prove anything.” – Bart Simpson

“To knock a thing down, especially if it is cocked at an arrogant angle, is a deep delight of the blood.” – George Santayana

“I am ashamed to tell you to how many places of figures I carried these computations, having no other business at the time.” – Newton, Methodus Fluxionum

“Pardon him, Theodotus: he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature.” – Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

“The problem with the guilt-free society is that we have all this unallocated blame lying about.” – Judith Martin

“Read the best books first: you may not have the chance to read them all.” – Thoreau?

“Live each day as if it’s your last, and one day you’re bloody sure to be right.” – Harry H. “Breaker” Morant

“The bun is the lowest form of wheat.” – Martin Gardner

“Fame is a vapor, popularity is an accident, and money takes wings. The only thing that endures is character.” – O. J. Simpson, 1981

“It’s not the voting that’s democracy; it’s the counting.” – Tom Stoppard

“Creativity is what happens when you suddenly run out of stupidity.” – Ed Land

“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘nice dog’ while you find a rock.” – Talleyrand

“In science one tries to tell people, in such a way as to be understood by everyone, what no one ever knew before. In poetry, it is the exact opposite.” – P. A. M. Dirac

“No man should marry until he has dissected a woman.” – Balzac

“Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.” (With stupidity, the gods themselves contend in vain.) – Schiller

“Nothing is often a good thing to do and almost always a clever thing to say.” – Will Durant

“Etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur.” (Desire for glory is the last infirmity cast off even by the wise.) – Tacitus

“When an idea is wanting, a word can always be found to take its place.” – Goethe

“Hier liegen meine Gebeine: wenn wären sie nur deine! Heine.” (Here I lie because I’m dead, I wish that you were here instead. Fred.) – Heinrich Heine’s epitaph.

Many, many more on tap; keeping my kids oversupplied with these was a decade-long family exercise. I may post again tomorrow if the thread is still going.

The moral of the story is, is we’re here on Earth to fart around.

I think that particular excerpt would do just fine for all sorts of occasions, rf.