I know what I want, but God knows what I need.
- Thread starter aav900
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There's something a bit similar to the second part in the Bible:
scit enim Pater vester, quibus opus sit vobis, antequam petatis eum.
for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
Matt. 6.8.
If we draw inspiration from it:
Scio quae cupiam sed deus scit quibus opus sit mihi: I know what things I want but god knows what things I need.
Or if you still prefer it in singular:
Scio quid cupiam sed deus scit quid opus sit mihi: I know what I want but god knows what I need.
scit enim Pater vester, quibus opus sit vobis, antequam petatis eum.
for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him.
Matt. 6.8.
If we draw inspiration from it:
Scio quae cupiam sed deus scit quibus opus sit mihi: I know what things I want but god knows what things I need.
Or if you still prefer it in singular:
Scio quid cupiam sed deus scit quid opus sit mihi: I know what I want but god knows what I need.
If you're going with modern punctuation/capitalization, you can capitalize it, yes.
In Roman times, there wouldn't even have been a capital letter at the start of the sentence. It would have been either all in small letters, or all in caps; with either all words strung together with no spaces, or with interpuncts between them. I don't know what kind of font you're going to choose?
In caps, like monumental style, U's become V's:
SCIO·QVID·CVPIAM·SED·DEVS·SCIT·QVID·OPVS·SIT·MIHI
SCIO·QVAE·CVPIAM·SED·DEVS·SCIT·QVIBVS·OPVS·SIT·MIHI
Or even:
SCIOQVIDCVPIAMSEDDEVSSCITQVIDOPVSSITMIHI
SCIOQVAECVPIAMSEDDEVSSCITQVIBVSOPVSSITMIHI
Yes, hard to read, lol.
In case you'd like more info on fonts etc. you can look at the link in my signature.
Capital letters with interpuncts (easier to read), early modern font with all U replaced with capital V; I think it looks more nice or more elegant, what do you think?. If I want it to look very elegant, nice, but at the same time readable and concise. Which font and style would you use?
You're getting caught up in the (overly literal) English translations, unfortunately. Both and neither (depending on how you look at it) Latin sentence speaks of "things". The only real difference is that the first uses a plural pronoun, the second a singular. If you want it to suggest that there's one thing in particular that you especially want and one thing in particular that God knows you especially need, use the version with quid, otherwise the one with quae and quibus is preferable, as it suggests everything in general that you want and need.
Seconding Pacis. It has a nice sound in Church Latin.
It would also look good in Carolingian or Gothic text.
It would also look good in Carolingian or Gothic text.Imber Ranae. You just made me change my mind. Because, with this quote I'm not trying to say that I need something in particular, but the things in life that I will want eventually, which of course tend to be more than one. So, if I'm not wrong, the correct form that I will be looking at is :
Thanks!
Yet again, I don't want to turn away from the original quote, but I guess it can be modified according to what you say. Eventually I will want more than one thing in life, so that is making reference to using the plural form you recomend.
Thanks!
In fact, the idea of "what", "this", etc, was not rarely - not always but depending on context - expressed in Latin with a plural, and can very often be translated into English with singluar "what" or "this", because since English has no neuter plural pronouns as Latin had, it uses only the singular, even if in fact it's about several things, rather than say "things" everywhere. The word "things" is not actually there in the Latin, but it's just like a plural "what"... Quid = what (singular); quae = what (plural, what "things"...).