Quotes By Quintilian

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

Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.

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

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.

A laugh, if purchased at the expense of propriety, costs too much.

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.

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

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

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

Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.

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

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.

Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.

To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.

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

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

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

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

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