Quintilian Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

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

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

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

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.

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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

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

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

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

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.

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

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

Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

A Woman who is generous with her money is to be praised; not so, if she is generous with her person

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

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

Usage is the best language teacher.

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

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

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

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

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.

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

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

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.