Quintilian, a Roman rhetorician born around 35 AD in Hispania, authored “Institutio Oratoria,” a seminal work on oratory education. Emphasizing both natural talent and systematic training, he outlined the comprehensive development of an orator, addressing areas such as moral character, rhetoric skills, and the teacher’s role. Quintilian’s influential ideas on education transcended his time, leaving a lasting impact through the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. His focus on ethical aspects of oratory distinguishes his work, advocating for the integration of virtue with eloquence. The “Institutio Oratoria” remains a foundational text in the study of classical rhetoric, showcasing Quintilian’s enduring legacy in shaping the understanding and practice of effective communication.
Quintilian Quotes
1. “Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.”
— Quintilian
2. “A liar should have a good memory.”
— Quintilian
3. “We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.”
— Quintilian
4. “We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.”
— Quintilian
5. “Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.”
— Quintilian
6. “A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.”
— Quintilian
7. “Conscience is a thousand witnesses.”
— Quintilian
8. “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.”
— Quintilian
9. “A liar must have a good memory. -Mendacem oportet esse memorem.”
— Quintilian
10. “Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.”
— Quintilian
11. “The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.”
— Quintilian
12. “Usage is the best language teacher.”
— Quintilian
13. “When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.”
— Quintilian
14. “Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.”
— Quintilian
15. “If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.”
— Quintilian
16. “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.”
— Quintilian
17. “We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.”
— Quintilian
18. “A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”
— Quintilian
19. “Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.”
— Quintilian
20. “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
21. “Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.”
— Quintilian
22. “It is the heart which inspires eloquence.”
— Quintilian
23. “Fear of the future is worse than one’s present fortune.”
— Quintilian
24. “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
25. “By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.”
— Quintilian
26. “There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.”
— Quintilian
27. “Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.”
— Quintilian
28. “Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.”
— Quintilian
29. “The perfection of art is to conceal art.”
— Quintilian
30. “An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.”
— Quintilian
31. “A Woman who is generous with her money is to be praised; not so, if she is generous with her person.”
— Quintilian
32. “It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.”
— Quintilian
33. “Lately we have had many losses.”
— Quintilian
34. “The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.”
— Quintilian
35. “In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.”
— Quintilian
36. “While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. the opportunity is lost.”
— Quintilian
37. “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.”
— Quintilian
38. “For all the best teachers pride themselves on having a large number of pupils and think themselves worthy of a bigger audience.”
— Quintilian
39. “She abounds with lucious faults.”
— Quintilian
40. “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.”
— Quintilian
41. “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
42. “Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.”
— Quintilian
43. “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
44. “To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.”
— Quintilian
45. “Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.”
— Quintilian
46. “Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.”
— Quintilian
47. “Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.”
— Quintilian
48. “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
49. “Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.”
— Quintilian
50. “Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.”
— Quintilian
51. “It is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time.”
— Quintilian
52. “Medicine for the dead is too late.”
— Quintilian
53. “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.”
— Quintilian
54. “Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake.”
— Quintilian
55. “While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.”
— Quintilian
56. “Let us never adopt the maxim, Rather lose our friend than our jest.”
— Quintilian
57. “That which offends the ear will not easily gain admission to the mind.”
— Quintilian
58. “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.”
— Quintilian
59. “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
60. “Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.”
— Quintilian
61. “A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.”
— Quintilian
62. “Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.”
— Quintilian
63. “It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.”
— Quintilian
64. “When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.”
— Quintilian
65. “The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.”
— Quintilian
66. “Suffering itself does less afflict the senses than the apprehension of suffering.”
— Quintilian
67. “One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.”
— Quintilian
68. “Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.”
— Quintilian
69. “For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.”
— Quintilian
70. “That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.”
— Quintilian
71. “The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.”
— Quintilian
72. “The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.”
— Quintilian
73. “Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.”
— Quintilian
74. “In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.”
— Quintilian
75. “Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.”
— Quintilian
76. “It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.”
— Quintilian
77. “For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.”
— Quintilian
