Quintilian Quotes - Page 2

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

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

There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.

The perfection of art is to conceal art.

Conscience is a thousand witnesses.

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

When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.

A liar should have a good memory.

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.

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.

While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.

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

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

Suffering itself does less afflict the senses than the apprehension of suffering.

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

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.

For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.

If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.

The prosperous can not easily form a right idea of misery.

Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures. [Lat., Continuis voluptatibus vicina satietas.]

Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.

When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.

In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.