TRIVIAL PURSUITS: What is the official motto of the U.S. Postal Service?

What is the U.S. Postal Service’s official motto?

According to the United States Postal Service, it has no official motto.

Many people think “Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds,” is the official motto of the U.S. Postal Service. However, the words come from Book 8, Paragraph 98, of The Persian Wars by Herodotus. During the wars between the Greeks and Persians (500-449 B.C.), the Persians operated a system of mounted postal couriers who served with great fidelity.

Though it is not the official motto of the Postal Service, the words are chiseled in gray granite over the entrance to the New York City Post Office on 8th Avenue. The firm of McKim, Mead & White designed the New York General Post Office, which opened to the public on Labor Day in 1914. One of the firm’s architects, William Mitchell Kendall, was the son of a classics scholar and read Greek for pleasure. He selected the “Neither snow nor rain . . .” inscription, which he modified from a translation by Professor George Herbert Palmer of Harvard University, and the Post Office Department approved it.