The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.
QUINTILIANThe pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.
QUINTILIANWhilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
QUINTILIANIt is the heart which inspires eloquence.
QUINTILIANFear of the future is worse than one’s present fortune.
QUINTILIANWhen we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.
QUINTILIANThe gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.
QUINTILIANOne should aim not at being possible to understand, but at being impossible to misunderstand.
QUINTILIANMen, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.
QUINTILIANMen 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.
QUINTILIANOne thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.
QUINTILIANGod, 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.
QUINTILIANIt is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time.
QUINTILIANIf you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.
QUINTILIANIt is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.
QUINTILIANIt seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.
QUINTILIANOur minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.
QUINTILIAN