Quintilian Quotes

40 Sourced Quotes

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.

Quintilian
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.

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

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

Quintilian
In either case the orator should bear clearly in mind throughout his whole speech what the fiction is to which he has committed himself, since we are apt to forget our falsehoods, and there is no doubt about the truth of the proverb that a liar should have a good memory.

Quintilian
There is nothing more detestable than a man who, because he has learned a little more than the alphabet, thinks that he has been initiated into the deepest secrets of science.

Quintilian
The all-important gift of an orator is to respond to change and variety in things.

Quintilian
The Medea of Ovid seems to me to show how much that man could have excelled had he chosen to rein in his cleverness rather than indulge it.

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

Quintilian
For it is feeling and force of imagination that makes us eloquent.

Quintilian
Nature herself, indeed, seems to have given music to us as a benefit, to enable us to endure labors with greater facility, for musical sounds cheer even the rower; and it is not only in those works in which the efforts of many, while some pleasing voice leads them, conspire together that music is of avail, but the toil even of people at work by themselves finds itself soothed by song, however rude.

Quintilian
However many things we may have done, we are yet to a certain degree fresh for that which we are going to begin. Who, on the contrary, would not be stupefied if he were to listen to the same teacher of any art, whatever it might be, through the whole day? But by change a person will be recruited, as is the case with respect to food, by varieties of which the stomach is re-invigorated and is fed with several sorts less unsatisfactorily than with one.

Quintilian
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.

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

Quintilian
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.

Quintilian
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.

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

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

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

Quintilian
Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

Quintilian
The lofty serenity of science becomes possible only on the condition of impartial criticism, which without regard for the beliefs of a certain portion of humanity, handles its imperturbable instrument with the inflexibility of the geometrician, without anger and without pity. The critic never insults.

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

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

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

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

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

Quintilian
Yet students must pronounce with diffidence and circumspection on the merits of such illustrious characters, lest, as is the case with many, they condemn what they do not understand.

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

Quintilian
As birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to show fierceness, so to us peculiarly belong activity and sagacity of understanding.

Quintilian
We give to necessity the praise of virtue.

Quintilian