# Capable is he who is wise



## Talmudian1

Hi

I know that the equivalent for 'knowledge is power' in Latin is: '_sapientia est potentia_', however, I'll be grateful, if you kindly help me translating the following two sentences from English to Latin.

1. "Capable is he who is wise"

And

2. "One who has wisdom is capable".

Many thanks in advance.
Shimi


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## Scholiast

saluete amici consodalesque!

_capax qui sapit_ should do the trick.

Σ


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## Talmudian1

Scholiast said:


> _capax qui sapit_



Thank you very much, but it is not the same as "Capable is he who is wise" or "One who has wisdom is capable"?! So, if you want to construct a sentence/phrase in Latin, to correspond with the above mentioned sentences, i.e. word by word, what would it be?!


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## Scholiast

Heus Talmudian1
_
quod scripsi, scripsi_. For the life of me I cannot fathom what you want here. My first reaction, _Capax qui sapit_, is an exact translation, word for word.
So what are you truly looking for? Something more poetic? Something with a rhetorical jingle? Something with a flavour of Hebrew? Your rejection of my first reply is genuinely puzzling.

Σ


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## Scholiast

Greetings once more


Talmudian1 said:


> What you are [...] offering, is abridged version


A startling beauty, and strength, of Latin is precisely the epigrammatic brevity with which it can distill complex ideas into a few words. For something less 'abridged' Talmudian1 _noster_ could try 'capax ille qui sapit'. _sapientia est capax_ is indeed grammatical, but feels rather lame and does not translate what in # 1 he was looking for.
Σ


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## bearded

Hi Talmudian
I think that ''being wise'' and ''having wisdom'' essentially mean the same thing, so you practically asked for translation of the same and one sentence... In Latin the verb 'sapere' means to be wise/to possess 'sapientia'(wisdom). Therefore Scholiat's translation_ capax qui sapit_ is not only perfect, but it also renders in very elegant Latin what you wanted to express according to your #1.  Latin is by definition 'abridged' and epigrammatic, and in my opinion you would just have to thank and nothing to complain about.
I will marginally add that Scholiast is one of the best latinists we have in the forum.


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## bearded

Talmudian1 said:


> , however, I was looking for the exact translation of the sentence


In my opinion you did precisely receive the exact translation of the sentence, and not an abridged or poetic version of it. Let's see:

1. 'capable is he who is wise'  / capax qui sapit
capable > capax
he who > qui
is wise > sapit
Translation of the first 'is' does not appear, as in Latin it is implicit/understood.
Therefore, it's word for word.

2. Same as 1.

Sorry, you seem to be unable to appreciate the exactness and conciseness of the translation you received.


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## bearded

Grammatically it is masculine, but is meant to denote both genders (like English 'who')


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## Scholiast

saluete de nouo


Talmudian1 said:


> '_capax qui sapit_' denotes a male


In gender _qui _is masculine. But (a) grammatical gender has nothing to do with sex: in several Amerindian or African languages there are genders relating to size, distance, edibility and other things; (b) in Latin and the Romance legacy languages the grammatical masculine 'embraces' the feminine as well.
Could you please supply a context for _in virtute autem sapiens_? It feels biblical, but I cannot immediately remember. Psalms, somewhere, maybe?
Σ


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## Scholiast

_quae cum ita sint_, the enquiry would better be directed to the Persian/Farsi arena of WR first. If you can bear to talk to them. There are thousands, tens of thousands, of Iranians who only want peace with Israel.
Σ


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