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

Quintilian

It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.
QUINTILIAN

Easy Hand Oneself Power Try
If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.
QUINTILIAN

Direct Eyes Mindset Reach Work
By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.
QUINTILIAN

Difference Literature Poet Writing
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.
QUINTILIAN

Difficult Excuse Ourselves
It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
QUINTILIAN

Children Himself Imitation Nurse
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
Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.
QUINTILIAN

Gift Natural Rule Technical
For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.
QUINTILIAN

Easy Mindset Teaching
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
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
QUINTILIAN

Cost Expense Laughter Virtue
Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.
QUINTILIAN

Ambition Mistake Mom Virtue
Conscience is a thousand witnesses.
QUINTILIAN

Conscience One Liner Perspective Spirituality
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
QUINTILIAN

Beginning Deliberate Growth
While we are examining into everything we sometimes find truth where we least expected it.
QUINTILIAN

Examination Expectation Time
Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.
QUINTILIAN

Change Greatness Nature
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

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

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

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