[Well it beats the ego expressed in the Latin, anyway!I am afraid that you have the advantage over me, CK. I inserted that signature line after tracking down the Latin version of a phrase attributed to Seneca in my atlas: "I was not born for one corner of the earth, the whole world is my native land." I could only find the last part in Latin, and when I did, it was on a UN page. Here's the paragraph from which I copied the "egotistical" phrase in question:
Speaking on the topic of world peace, Roman philosopher Seneca who lived at the time of Christ said: "There will be world peace when we create a new generation which is capable of transcending all boundaries and divisions and say with realization: Omnis orbs terrarum patria mea est -- the whole world is my native land." This is one of the greatest challenges we are facing today. World citizenship is a goal which we should reach, the sooner the better, for it eventually creates the concept of a genuine global community.
I was puzzled by "orbs", and inserted the signature line in the hope that one of the Latin literati here might be able to validate it, or correct it. Having never studied Latin, I couldn't shake the feeling that "orbs" looked wrong, and that the word should have been "orbis" instead.
After all that blethering, what I'm saying is that I am at loss to figure out how the quote is a display of ego. I guess that's a good demonstration of why one should not use foreign language quotes without being
certain of their meaning.
