Quintilian Quotes

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

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.

We should not speak so that it is possible for the audience to understand us, but so that it is impossible for them to misunderstand us.

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.

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.

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues. [Lat., Licet ipsa vitium sit ambitio, frequenter tamen causa virtutem est.]

Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

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.

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

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

A liar should have a good memory.

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

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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

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.

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

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

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

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.

To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man. [Lat., In totum jurare, nisi ubi necesse est, gravi viro parum convenit.]

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

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

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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