I have perhaps half-seriously been looking for a Latin motto for myself for some time now, perhaps close to 20 years.
A little while ago, I found Omnia Vincit Amor in a dictionary, which (it said) means “Love Conquers All”. Appropriate and all-purpose, no? However, I was talking a while back to a Latin professor at a nearby university I went to for a while, who said actually, this is a quote from Virgil, and he is talking about romantic love, not brotherly love (which is more of what I wanted).
Now, I am interested a little bit in languages, including Latin. And I later concluded maybe Caritas would be more appropriate. It does not mean romantic love. It actually is the ultimate root of our English word “charity”, i.e., perfect unselfish love. That gives us thus: Omnia Vincit Caritas.
I still don’t know though. I know it is closer. But it might also have religious overtones. I don’t deny some Higher Power of things. But I am not particularly religious. And I was looking for something more secular, if you will. (Side note: There is also the matter of the word order. Word order in Latin is not fixed. However, putting a sentence in a certain order does put emphasis on certain words. I think the words at the end of the sentence or phase get more emphasis–but I don’t know:confused:.)
(Of course, what I would really love is a translation too of “Love Takes No Less Than Everything” [cf. my signature]. And if you have it, by all means share. But Love Conquers All is a better choice, because it is simpler to find;).)
Caritas does indeed mean charity. But in Church Latin it has had for nearly 2000 years the same meaning as Greek agapé, selfless or divine love, the love which Jesus’s Summary ol the Law commands that Christians have for God and for their fellow man. (Not to witness in GQ, but to emphasize the point that it is in fact the right word for what Jim seems to be seeking.) I believe it was used in this sense in Classical Latin as well, but don’t have hard evidence of that.
Latin syntax is indeed more flexible, but not random. “Pedestrian” Latin, where one is simply relating information with no intent for emphasis or special style, prefers Subject-Verb-Object/Predicate for intransitive and ‘copulative’ verbs like esse and Subject-Object-Verb for transitive verbs. But issues of stress and emphasis permit one to switch the order around to put the emphasis where you wish it to be.