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It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

Quintilian

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

Appearance Fools Virtue Wisdom
Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
QUINTILIAN

Advice Beginning End Proverb
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

Kind Natural Oneself Separate Soul
Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.
QUINTILIAN

Change Greatness Nature
In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
QUINTILIAN

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

Easy Mindset Teaching
Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.
QUINTILIAN

Beginning Herself Learning Nature Touch Virtue
Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.
QUINTILIAN

Ambition Father Vice Virtue
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
QUINTILIAN

Beginning Deliberate Growth
A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.
QUINTILIAN

Accompany Average Impression Support
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.
QUINTILIAN

Change Dangerous Fortune
To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.
QUINTILIAN

Criticism Development Imagination Mindset Promise
The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.
QUINTILIAN

Admission Creation Excellence Impression Pretend
There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.
QUINTILIAN

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

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

Change Food Fresh Mindset Stomach
The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.
QUINTILIAN

Art Feeling Learning Pleasure Reason Understand
Medicine for the dead is too late.
QUINTILIAN

Death Medicine One Liner
Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.
QUINTILIAN

Gift Natural Rule Technical
That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.
QUINTILIAN

Arrival Lost Perfection Vanish
A man who tries to surpass another may perhaps succeed in equaling in not actually surpassing him, but one who merely follows can never quite come up with him: a follower, necessarily, is always behind.
QUINTILIAN

Equality Follow Himself Man Quite Success
Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.
QUINTILIAN

Alone Desire Excite Feeling Law
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.
QUINTILIAN

Defeat Protection Wisdom
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

Accomplishment Man Quality Value Wrong
Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.
QUINTILIAN

Compulsion Goodness Secure Study
A religion without mystics is a philosophy.
QUINTILIAN

One Liner Philosophy Religion
The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.
QUINTILIAN

Capacity Writing

It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

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It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.

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