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Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

Quintilian

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

Better Born Destruction Dumb Man Neighbor Reason
A liar must have a good memory.
QUINTILIAN

Goodness Lying Memories
It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
QUINTILIAN

Children Himself Imitation Nurse
Let us never adopt the maxim, Rather lose our friend than our jest.
QUINTILIAN

Adopt Friendship Ourselves
Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.
QUINTILIAN

Beginning Herself Learning Nature Touch Virtue
While we ponder when to begin, it becomes too late to do.
QUINTILIAN

Action Beginning Late
Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.
QUINTILIAN

Appearance Fools Learning
The obscurity of a writer is generally in proportion to his incapacity.
QUINTILIAN

Capacity Writing
That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.
QUINTILIAN

Arrival Lost Perfection Vanish
The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.
QUINTILIAN

Body Infinite Mindset Nature
Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.
QUINTILIAN

Compulsion Goodness Secure Study
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

Exercise Mindset Subject Vice Virtue
It is the heart which inspires eloquence.
QUINTILIAN

Heart Inspirational One Liner
Conscience is a thousand witnesses.
QUINTILIAN

Conscience One Liner Perspective Spirituality
One thing, however, I must premise, that without the assistance of natural capacity, rules and precepts are of no efficacy.
QUINTILIAN

Assistance Capacity Natural Rule
An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
QUINTILIAN

Difference Evil Opportunity

Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

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Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.

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Popular Authors

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