Knowledge is power, etc

di_lobster

New Member

Hello!!
It's awesome to have a whole forum just for latin! I took latin during a whole year on high school but I don't remember much, really.

My little brother got accepted and he's going to go to the state's uni. He'll be studying law. Anyway, he wanted an ipad and I thought it would be a good gift for him. I saw we can have some text engraved into it and i have thought one of these two options would be okay:

Constantia fundamentum est omnium virtutum
Scientia est potentia

Yet, i'm not so sure if they're correctly written.
Specially the second one, is it:

A) Scientia est potentia
B) scientia ipsa potentia est
C) ipsa scientia potestas est

Could somebody help me please?
I saw this thread: THREAD: knowledge-is-power
"Scientia est potentia." and said that was right...but also: "Ipsa scientia potestas est."
So maybe the worst option might be B...but what's the diffrence then?

Thank you for your help!!
 

Adrian

Civis Illustris

  • Civis Illustris

A and C are good , B is also acceptable (all of them are grammaticaly correct)
A - Scientia est potentia - Knowledge is Power (a paraphrase of the original quote by Sir Francis Bacon)
C - Ipsa Scientia Potestas Est - Knowledge itself is power ( Sir Francis Bacon, Meditationes Sacrae 1597)

Hereunder are links to L&S where you can see detail information about 'potestas' and 'potentia'
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=potentia&la=la&can=potentia1&prior=potentatus#lexicon
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/morph?l=potestas&la=la&can=potestas0&prior=potentia#lexicon

EDIT : Sniped
 

scrabulista

Consul

  • Consul

Location:
Tennessee
If you're quoting Francis Bacon, ipsa scientia potestas est = "knowledge itself is power," is the correct choice.
Option (A) is OK though for "knowledge is power."
 

Manus Correctrix

QVAE CORRIGIT

  • Civis Illustris

Location:
Victoria
I don’t like B because it’s not clear which word ipsa refers to, but all are grammatically correct.
 
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