Quotes from Quintilian

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

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

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

Usage is the best language teacher.

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

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

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.

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

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

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.

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

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

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

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

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

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

That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.

A liar should have a good memory.

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

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

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.

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

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

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