Quintilian Quotes

78 quotes in 679 categories

• Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.
• 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…
• A liar ought to have a good memory.
• Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.
• In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.
• 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…
• Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
• Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
• There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.
• 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.
• Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.
• 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.
• In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
• Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.
• Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.
• A Woman who is generous with her money is to be praised; not so, if she is generous with her person
• For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.
• Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.
• An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.

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