Expert: Maria - 2/25/2010

Question
Hi Maria,

I was wondering if you could translate this quote into Latin for me?

"The heart has reasons that reason cannot know"

and I've also seen it this way...

"The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of"

I would greatly appreciate your time and consideration in translating this. I would like to put it in my vows, I think it is such a great quote that is very accurate when describing situations of the heart! Thanks you again

-S

Answer
Hello,

Blaise Pascal famous quotation “The heart has reasons that reason cannot know” can be translated as follows:

-“Causas  habet Cor quas  Ratio noscere non potest “


As for the version "The heart has its reasons that reason knows not of", here’s its translation:

-"Suas Cor habet causas quas Ratio ignorat"

Best wishes,
Maria
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Note that :

-The heart = COR (nominative, 3rd.declension)

-has = HABET (from HABEO)

-reasons = CAUSAS (direct object in the accusative plural of CAUSA, 1st.declension)

-that = QUAS (direct object in the accusative feminine plural  of the relative pronoun QUI agreed with CAUSAS)

-reason = RATIO (nominative, 3rd.declension)

-cannot = NON (negative adverb) POTEST (from POSSUM, I can)

-know = NOSCERE (from NOSCO, I know)
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-The heart =see above

-has =see above

-its = SUAS (accusative feminine plural of the possessive SUUS agreed with CAUSAS)

-reasons= see above

-that = see above

-reason = see above

-knows not of  =IGNORAT (from IGNORO, I do not know of)


I have to point out that in Latin there are  two ways to say “reason”, i.e. CAUSA (nominative case) for “reason” as a motive for an action/decision, and RATIO (nominative case)  for “reason” as the faculty of the mind that forms the basis of the understanding.

As you can see, Latin word order is different from English for Latin is an inflected language where syntactical relationships are indicated by the  inflectional  endings, not by the order of the words.