New Mexico State Motto: Crescit Eundo

New Mexico's state motto is Crescit Eundo, Latin for It Grows as It Goes. The New Mexico Legislature officially adopted it in 1913 as part of the state seal description. The phrase had already appeared on the territorial seal since 1887.

The motto comes from a Roman poem written over 2,000 years ago. Lucretius used the phrase to describe a thunderbolt in his scientific epic De Rerum Natura. New Mexico is one of the few states whose motto can be traced to a specific line in a classical Latin text.

The Latin verb crescit comes from crescere, meaning to grow or increase. Eundo is formed from the verb ire, meaning to go, and translates roughly as by going or as it goes. Together the phrase means: it grows as it goes, or it increases by going.

The idea is motion as the engine of growth. Something does not simply grow by standing still — it grows through movement and action. Applied to a new state, the phrase reads as a statement about building through forward progress.

The phrase entered New Mexico's official life in 1882, when William G. Ritch, acting Territorial Secretary, added Crescit Eundo to an older version of the territorial seal that dated from the early 1860s. Ritch chose the phrase from Lucretius — no legislative vote was required at that stage.

In 1887, the New Mexico territorial legislature formally adopted Ritch's version of the seal, including the words Crescit Eundo, as the official territorial seal and coat of arms.

New Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912. The following year, in 1913, the legislature adopted the state seal — continuing the design of the territorial seal — and with it officially designated Crescit Eundo as the state motto. The motto appears on the seal on a scroll beneath two eagles.