The story
From Latin, echoing line 454 of Terence’s Phormio: quot (“how many”) + hominēs (“men”, “people”; nominative plural form of homō: “man”, “person”) + tot (“so many”) + sententiae (“opinions”, “thoughts”; nominative plural form of sententia: “opinion”, “thought”).
Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.