Contrary to popular opinion, the Lorem Ipsum is not simply random text. It finds its roots in a work of classical Latin literature dating from 45 BC. BC, making it 2000 years old. A professor at Hampden-Sydney College, Virginia, was interested in one of the darkest Latin words, consectetur, extracted from a passage in the Lorem Ipsum, and by studying all the uses of this word in classical literature, The indisputable source of Lorem Ipsum. It comes in fact from sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of the “De Finibus Bonorum and Malorum” (Supreme Goods and Supreme Evils) of Cicero. This book, very popular during the Renaissance, is a treatise on the theory of ethics. The first lines of the Lorem Ipsum, “Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet …”, come from section 1.10.32.

The standard extract of Lorem Ipsum used since the sixteenth century is reproduced below for the curious. Sections 1.10.32 and 1.10.33 of Cicero’s “De Finibus Bonorum et Malorum” are also reproduced in their original version, accompanied by the English translation of H. Rackham (1914).