Quintilian quotes

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

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

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

Medicine for the dead is too late

Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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

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

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

Too exact, and studious of similitude rather than of beauty. [Lat., Nimis in veritate, et similitudinis quam pulchritudinis amantior.]

We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

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

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

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

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

Although virtue receives some of its excellencies from nature, yet it is perfected by education. [Lat., Virtus, etiamsi quosdam impetus a natura sumit, tamen perficienda doctrina est.]

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.]

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.

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

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

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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

Minds that are stupid and incapable of science are in the order of nature to be regarded as monsters and other extraordinary phenomena; minds of this sort are rare. Hence I conclude that there are great resources to be found in children, which are suffered to vanish with their years. It is evident, therefore, that it is not of nature, but of our own negligence, we ought to complain.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.

A liar ought to have a good memory.

A liar must have a good memory. -Mendacem oportet esse memorem

A religion without mystics is a philosophy.

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

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

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.

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.

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

Usage is the best language teacher.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.

Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.

She abounds with lucious faults.

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.

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

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

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

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

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.

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

A liar should have a good memory.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

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

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

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

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

(Slaughter) means blood and iron. [Lat., Coedes videtur significare sanguinem et ferrum.]

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

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

Lately we have had many losses.

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

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.

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

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