/lit/ - Literature

Post your favorite classical idioms from any language. As for me, from Latin,
>tundo eadem includem
This is from Cicero's 'de Oratore'.
It literally means 'I am beating the same anvil' but what it really means is 'I am doing the same thing as always'

>>19960355
>Bonus if you drop untranslated Latin into a book
Interesting that 200 years ago this would not faze the average educated person, considering that they have had a decade of training in classical languages, but to the modern, educated reader it is becomes so occult and far beyond their reach that they cope by calling it pretentious.
As far as classical references, it was just a shorthand that united most of the Europeans since they shared a common literary education. Nowadays, people are brought up on YA and use that as references should they decide to write seriously as an adult. O tempora, o mores.