Zola's motto

June 28, 2010 3:00 PM

I'm looking for the proper form of Latin motto. In Emile Zola's country house there is a Latin motto on the wall. I copied it down when I was there some years ago, but can't find the note now. It was close to: "Nulla dies sine linea" or, in English, "Never a day without a line". Does anyone know the exact phrase in Zola's study? And/or is my version correct and do I translate it correctly? This will become a sampler for the wall of my own study, so I'd appreciate any quidance.
posted by Jenna Brown to Writing & Language (4 answers total)

Wikipedia: "The last saying Pliny attributes to Apelles refers to the painter's diligence at practising his art every day: Nulla dies sine linea -- "Not a day without a line drawn.""
posted by MonkeyToes at 3:13 PM on June 28, 2010

Yes this is Apelles' famous quote
posted by fire&wings at 3:38 PM on June 28, 2010

You can read a fuller discussion of the source of the proverb here. In short, there is no classical source for that exact form of the proverb, but it does show up in an early modern collection of proverbs.
posted by dd42 at 5:35 PM on June 28, 2010

To answer another of your questions: +1 for your memory, because it looks like the motto you remember is indeed correct! Searching Google Books returned a number of results that confirm this. One in particular is this tidbit from the introduction to Zola's Notes from Exile from University of Toronto Press:

This motto, 'Nulla dies sine linea,' still can be seen, written in letters of gold above the mantelpiece in Zola's study at Médan.

(The origin of the phrase has already been addressed above, but just as a related note: you'll see that there's a footnote number assigned to the motto in the quoted sentence, but the corresponding page with that particular footnote isn't included in the scans available online.)
posted by rangefinder 1.4 at 8:08 PM on June 28, 2010