Best 70 quotes of Quintilian on MyQuotes

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.

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

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

A liar ought to have a good memory.

A liar should have a good memory.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

It is the heart which inspires eloquence.

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

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

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

Medicine for the dead is too late

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

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

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

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.

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