Q - Quintilian
Posted on 27th January 2021
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus 35 – 100AD was a Roman rhetorician (public speaker of rhetoric) born around 35AD He opened a public school of rhetoric that is believed to have been attended by many of the great Roman speakers.
His work ‘Institutio Oratoria’ is a twelve-volume textbook about rhetoric. It was published during his later years.
‘Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake’
‘Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it’
‘Everything that has a beginning comes to an end’
‘When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield’
‘The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression’
‘A liar should have a good memory’
‘It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing’
‘Nature herself has never attempted to affect great changes rapidly’
‘Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues’
‘Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended’
‘To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination’
‘While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin, the opportunity is lost’
‘He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity’
‘For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set’
‘Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish’
‘Consequently, the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture’
‘In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept’
‘We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide’
‘The perfection of art is to conceal art’
‘Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly’
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