Ubi panis ibi patria is a Latin expression meaning "Where there is bread, there is (my) country" (or home, or homeland). According to J. Hector St. John de Crèvecœur in "What is an American", the third of his Letters from an American Farmer, this is the motto of all emigrants/immigrants. It is not clear whether this is from Crèvecœur's quill or somebody else's.
In any case, it is reminiscent in its form of another motto that may have served as a model, Ubi bene ibi patria ("Where I am at ease, there is (my) country"; lit. where good, there fatherland). This latter expression in turn reminds of a verse (Teucer, fr. 291) of the Roman tragic poet Marcus Pacuvius (ca. 220-130 BC) quoted by Cicero (106 BC – 43 BC): Patria est ubicumque est bene (45 BC, Tusculanae Disputationes,Liber Quintus (V), 108). Jean-Jacques Rousseau also alludes to this motto in his 1772 "Considerations on the Government of Poland and on its Proposed Reformation."
Famous quotes containing the words ubi and/or patria:
“Where beth they biforen us weren,”
—Unknown. Ubi Sunt Qui ante Nos Fuerunt? (L. 1)
“My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.”
—Wilfred Owen (1893–1918)