Quintilian Quotes

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

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.]

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense 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.

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.

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.

Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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

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

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

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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