As I was skimming through the rather silly ‘No nos for adult men’ thread I suddenly remembered my division motto/mantra in the rok army which was 수사불패 청성투혼. The second half is rather lame and roughly translates to “I fight for the blue star (our division symbol)”, but the first half, 수사불패 (雖死不敗), is pretty badass. My best translation would be “though I may die, I will not (cannot) be defeated”. Read “su sa bul pae” in Korean.
Mottos in Latin, Chinese or Greek doubly welcome, as long as you provide translation.
I love the stupidities of automatic translation. The current generation of software seems especially bad at rendering East Asian languages into English. For example, Google Translate renders this motto as: “Auditory investigation invincible fighting spirit”
Anyway, my favorite motto is the one in my signature. First and second lines:
“Ridicule is the only weapon that can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them.”
If you don’t stop to analyze the snot spray, you are missing that which is best in life. - Miller
On my office wall for the last 20 years or so: “Adversity introduces a man to himself.” It helped ground me during a particularly rough time in my life.
I tried to Google the author of this maxim, and came up with the usual Mark Twain/Paul Harvey pseudo-citations, but other than that, no luck.
Best state motto: New Hampshire’s (“Live Free or Die”).
Worst, against much stiffer competition: Michigan’s (“Si Quaeris Peninsulam Amoenam Circumspice”, or "“If you seek a pleasant peninsula, look about you”).
