Carpe Diem: Latin Phrases

Everyone knows CARPE DIEM. Almost nobody knows Horace wrote it in a poem that ends «trust tomorrow as little as you can».

Carpe Diem gives you one Latin phrase each morning: the words as they came down to us, a literal translation, the real source, and where you would actually use it today. 100 phrases from classical antiquity and Roman law — all of it public domain, all of it explained in our own words.

◆ TODAY'S PHRASE: one a day, with its author and work.
◆ EXPLORE by word, category or theme: time, mortality, fortune, risk, judgment, power.
◆ SIX CATEGORIES: Time & Death, Power & War, Law, Love & Friendship, Wisdom, Fortune & Chance.
◆ FAVORITES: keep the ones you want at hand.
◆ SHARE clean, elegant phrase cards.
◆ OPTIONAL daily reminder and classic typography.

Some of what is inside: why MEMENTO MORI was whispered to a general during his own triumph; that ALEA IACTA EST marked the legal moment Caesar declared war on Rome; that PECUNIA NON OLET was Vespasian holding a coin to his son's nose; that DULCE ET DECORUM EST was later called «the old lie» by a poet in the trenches.

The Latin is given exactly as tradition transmits it. Translations and explanations are our own; nothing is copied from modern copyrighted translations. Where an attribution is disputed, we say so instead of inventing certainty.

Works fully offline, no accounts, in 12 languages.