A few days ago
Banshee Fay

Where can I find the original latin form of this quote?

I am looking for the latin form of this quote from Cicero:

“A room without books is like a body without a soul.”

Please give the source of your translation. I’ve already looked it up on one of those online english to latin translators, but anyone who speaks more than one language and has used those knows there’s always room for errors. This is what I got from one of the translation sites:

“A cella vacuus libri est amo a somes vacuus a animus”

Thanks in advance!

Top 4 Answers
A few days ago
dollhaus

Favorite Answer

Sine libris cella, sine anima corpus est.

ADDED: You’re right about online translators. What you have comes out something like:

By room empty books is I love by (somes? – not a word in Latin) empty by soul. Even this is not right – the cases(endings) of the words don’t match anything.

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A few days ago
Anonymous
Are you certain that this is truly a quote from Cicero? I do not believe this is something that Cicero wrote from any of the writings of his they we have. I have never come across it, to my memory, which in itself does not mean it doesn’t exist, but sometimes people attribute these types of sayings to someone in order to give them more authority than if they took credit for it themselves. Such might be the case with the quote that you have found here.

In any event, Latin has no articles, so omit the a, amo means I love, vacuus needs a different ending with cella… at the least, this does not express your idea. You could say, conclave sine libris sicut est corpus sine anima. There is more than one way to say something in Latin, and I have no doubt that Cicero did not say the translation that I gave you: I just made it up. If someone does try to tell you that their quote is from Cicero, be sure to have them tell you the exact text. If they can’t do that, chances are they made it up.

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4 years ago
Anonymous
Cicero Quotes In Latin
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A few days ago
Little Charlie
Latin was my minor in college, and I wasn’t that good at it, so take this nod for what it’s worth. Your declinsion of nouns and conjugation of verbs appear to be correct.
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