1.
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
Quintilian
2.
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.
Quintilian
3.
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.
Quintilian
4.
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.
Quintilian
5.
Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.
Quintilian
6.
One should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.
Quintilian
7.
While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. the opportunity is lost.
Quintilian
8.
A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.
Quintilian
9.
Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.
Quintilian
10.
We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.
Quintilian
11.
An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
Quintilian
12.
The perfection of art is to conceal art.
Quintilian
13.
There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.
Quintilian
14.
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.
Quintilian
15.
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.]
Quintilian
16.
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
Quintilian
17.
In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
Quintilian
18.
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.
Quintilian
19.
For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.
Quintilian
20.
Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.
Quintilian
21.
A liar should have a good memory.
Quintilian
22.
Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures.
[Lat., Continuis voluptatibus vicina satietas.]
Quintilian
23.
Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
Quintilian
24.
Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.
Quintilian
25.
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.
Quintilian
26.
Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.
Quintilian
27.
Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.
Quintilian
28.
Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.
Quintilian
29.
To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.
Quintilian
30.
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
Quintilian
31.
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.
Quintilian
32.
In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.
Quintilian
33.
Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.
Quintilian
34.
The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.
Quintilian
35.
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.
Quintilian
36.
It is the heart which inspires eloquence.
Quintilian
37.
Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.
Quintilian
38.
Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.
Quintilian
39.
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.
Quintilian
40.
To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.
[Lat., In totum jurare, nisi ubi necesse est, gravi viro parum convenit.]
Quintilian
41.
When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.
Quintilian
42.
The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.
Quintilian
43.
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.
Quintilian
44.
The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.
Quintilian
45.
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
Quintilian
46.
While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.
Quintilian
47.
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.
Quintilian
48.
The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.
Quintilian
49.
It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.
Quintilian
50.
For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.
Quintilian
