Phrasing you like

E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

A word bearing the acute upon the ultima is known as an oxytone, one with the acute upon the penult as a paroxytone, one with the acute upon the antepenult as a proparoxytone. One which bears the circumflex upon the ultima is called a perispomenon, one with the circumflex upon the penult is a properispomenon. These terms, though formidable, will save much laborious periphrasis.

Chase & Phillips, approaching poetry.
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

La distance n’y fait rien: il n’y a que le premier pas qui coûte.

Context is everything: this was Mme. du Deffand's comment on the legend that St Denis walked however many leagues it was carrying his head after being decapitated. Most people think it's the equivalent of the first step is the hardest, which would be bathetically banal.
 
B

Bitmap

Guest

Bitmap dixit:
Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB)
§ 923 Grenzbaum

(1) Steht auf der Grenze ein Baum, so gebühren die Früchte und, wenn der
Baum gefällt wird, auch der Baum den Nachbarn zu gleichen Teilen.

(3) Diese Vorschriften gelten auch
für einen auf der Grenze stehenden Strauch.
Click to expand...
They could use a tiny bit of finetuning, though:

(1) Steht auf der Grenze ein Baum, so gebühren die Früchte und, fällt man
nieder den Stamm, auch das Holze, zu gleicherlei Teilen den Nachbarn.

(3) Steht auf der Grenze ein Strauch
gilt diese Regelung auch.
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

Überheblich, überlegen
Übernehmen, übergeben
Überraschen, überfallen
Deutschland, Deutschland über allen
...

Du (übermächtig, überflüssig)
Ich (Übermenschen, überdrüssig)
Wir (wer hoch steigt, der wird tief fallen)
Ihr (Deutschland, Deutschland über allen)

There is the temptation to add 'now translate that into any other language'.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
Hic quadrupedum stupenda varietas, qualem pictorum solet manus lasciva depingere; qualem solet poetica licentia mentiri, aut somniantis animus visionibus imaginari nocturnis: qualem orientis, et austri solent dioeceses ministrare; occidens autem videre nunquam, audire vero rarius consuevit.

— William of Tyre.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;

— Percy Bysshe Shelley, Prometheus Unbound, 3.4.142-143. The lines are part of a description of the world becoming some kind of paradise after Jupiter is overthrown.

Let the horsemen's scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars

— Same author, The Mask of Anarchy, 315-316.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
I have sent books and music there, and all
Those instruments with which high spirits call
The future from its cradle, and the past
Out of its grave

— Same author as above, Epipsychidion, lines 519-522.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
Chaos is Man shaking hands with himself
shaping god in [his] own odd image
and then becoming an iconoclast.

Notes from the heathen tribe by Lilycoalbin

The universe is a lie told by God / to a fretful planet to explain / his frequent absences. Published at the web's largest poetry site.
allpoetry.com allpoetry.com
 
 
Bestiola

Bestiola

Nequissima

  • Civis Illustris
  • Sacerdos Isidis
Questo mondo di rugiada
è solamente un mondo di rugiada -
ed ancora

Kobayashi Issa
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
The underlying roots of Qābid give a sense of give and take, a movement back and forth, an underlying rhythm of ebb and flow, like the rhythmical folding and unfolding of a bird's wings in flight, or the rising and setting of the sun, or the endless cycles of life and death.
 
 
Dantius

Dantius

Homo Sapiens

  • Civis Illustris
Location:
in orbe lacteo
ita certum habebam esse melius tuae caritati me dedere quam meae cupiditati cedere, sed illud placebat et vincebat, hoc libebat et vinciebat

Augustine; I especially like the distinction he creates between placebat and libebat.
 
E

Etaoin Shrdlu

Guest

Slogans of whatever political stamp are often simplistic and stupid, which is fitting, as they're designed to appeal to people who aren't into thinking overly much. But one recent one (without any traceable origin as far as I can see without dedicating more time to the cause) that's rather good is Respect my existence or expect my resistance.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
Wow. The last two lines of each stanza.

Believe Me, If All Those Endearing Young Charms
by Thomas Moore (1779–1852)

BELIEVE me, if all those endearing young charms,
Which I gaze on so fondly to-day,
Were to change by to-morrow, and fleet in my arms,
Like fairy-gifts fading away,
Thou wouldst still be ador’d, as this moment thou art,
Let thy loveliness fade as it will,
And around the dear ruin each wish of my heart
Would entwine itself verdantly still.

It is not while beauty and youth are thine own,
And thy cheeks unprofan’d by a tear,
That the fervour and faith of a soul can be known,
To which time will but make thee more dear;
No, the heart that has truly lov’d never forgets,
But as truly loves on to the close,
As the sun-flower turns on her god, when he sets,
The same look which she turn’d when he rose.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
Turpe dictu! modo princeps patrum, pacis bellique moderator, per triumphatum a se mare lacera et paene inermi nave fugiebat.

Florus, on Pompey.
 
Pacifica

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis
Location:
Belgium
Troilus (in Shakespeare's play Troilus and Cressida) is having a conversation about the beauty of his beloved Cressida vs. that of Helen. He's indifferent to the latter. The story takes place during the Trojan War, and at this point the "alarum" sounds and Troilus says:

Peace, you ungracious clamors! Peace, rude sounds!
Fools on both sides! Helen must needs be fair
When with your blood you daily paint her thus.
 
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