Quintilian Quotes

#1. A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.

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#2. He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity.

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#3. For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.

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#4. For it would have been better that man should have been born dumb, nay, void of all reason, rather than that he should employ the gifts of Providence to the destruction of his neighbor.

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#5. It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.

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#6. The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.

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#7. Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.

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#8. God, that all-powerful Creator of nature and architect of the world, has impressed man with no character so proper to distinguish him from other animals, as by the faculty of speech.

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#9. Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

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#10. While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin, the opportunity is lost.

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#11. It is much easier to try one's hand at many things than to concentrate one's powers on one thing.

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#12. The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.

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#13. It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.

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#14. Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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#15. Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.

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#16. Give me the boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits when he is encouraged and who cries when he is defeated. Such a boy will be fired by ambition; he will be stung by reproach, and animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad consequences from idleness in such a boy.

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#17. A religion without mystics is a philosophy.

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#18. Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.

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#19. Let us never adopt the maxim, Rather lose our friend than our jest.

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#20. She abounds with lucious faults.

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#21. A liar ought to have a good memory.

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#22. The soul languishing in obscurity contracts a kind of rust, or abandons itself to the chimera of presumption; for it is natural for it to acquire something, even when separated from any one.

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#23. Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.

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#24. Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.

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#25. Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.

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#26. As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.

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#27. When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.

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#28. Usage is the best language teacher.

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#29. Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.

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#30. Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

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#31. Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where it is too absolute.

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#32. A man who tries to surpass another may perhaps succeed in equaling inot actually surpassing him, but one who merely follows can never quite come up with him: a follower, necessarily, is always behind.

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#33. Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

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#34. By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.

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#35. A laugh, if purchased at the expense of propriety, costs too much.

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#36. Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures.
[Lat., Continuis voluptatibus vicina satietas.]

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#37. Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.

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#38. For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.

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#39. Suffering itself does less afflict the senses than the apprehension of suffering.

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#40. If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.

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#41. Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.

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#42. One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.

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#43. The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation of virtue and vice.

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#44. An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.

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#45. The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

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#46. Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

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#47. A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.

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#48. Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

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#49. It is worth while too to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a boy's mind from effort.

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#50. Lately we have had many losses.

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#51. To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.

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#52. Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.

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#53. While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.

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#54. It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

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#55. Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

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#56. We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.

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#57. In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

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#58. Medicine for the dead is too late

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#59. While we ponder when to begin, it becomes too late to do.

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#60. The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.

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#61. The perfection of art is to conceal art.

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#62. A great part of art consists in imitation. For the whole conduct of life is based on this: that what we admire in others we want to do ourselves.

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#63. It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

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#64. For all the best teachers pride themselves on having a large number of pupils and think themselves worthy of a bigger audience.

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#65. That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

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#66. Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.

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#67. From writing rapidly it does not result that one writes well, but from writing well it results that one writes rapidly.

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#68. Men of quality are in the wrong to undervalue, as they often do, the practise of a fair and quick hand in writing; for it is no immaterial accomplishment.

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#69. Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times the cause of virtues.

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#70. Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.

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#71. In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.

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#72. To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.

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#73. When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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#74. That which offends the ear will not easily gain admission to the mind.

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#75. The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.

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#76. It is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time.

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#77. One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.

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#78. Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.

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#79. Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.

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#80. Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.

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#81. Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.

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#82. We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

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