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Lately we have had many losses.

Quintilian

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
Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures.
QUINTILIAN

Happiness Pleasure Satire
Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.
QUINTILIAN

Change Greatness Nature
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
That which prematurely arrives at perfection soon perishes.
QUINTILIAN

Arrival Lost Perfection Vanish
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
Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.
QUINTILIAN

Compulsion Goodness Secure Study
In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.
QUINTILIAN

Crowd Journey Seclusion
A liar ought to have a good memory.
QUINTILIAN

Goodness Lying Memories
For all the best teachers pride themselves on having a large number of pupils and think themselves worthy of a bigger audience.
QUINTILIAN

Audience Best Big Pride Teacher Worth
When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield.
QUINTILIAN

Advantage Hope Protection Win
Too exact, and studious of similitude rather than of beauty.
QUINTILIAN

Beautiful Exact Similar
Virtue, though she gets her beginning from nature, yet receives her finishing touches from learning.
QUINTILIAN

Beginning Herself Learning Nature Touch Virtue
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.
QUINTILIAN

Animal Creation Faculty God Impression Nature Powerful Talk
For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is set.
QUINTILIAN

Easy Mindset Teaching
A religion without mystics is a philosophy.
QUINTILIAN

One Liner Philosophy Religion
Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.
QUINTILIAN

Ambition Mistake Mom Virtue
Usage is the best language teacher.
QUINTILIAN

Language One Liner Teacher
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
QUINTILIAN

Cost Expense Laughter Virtue
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
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
In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
QUINTILIAN

Experience Value
Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.
QUINTILIAN

Break Easy Evil Habit Repair Settle
Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.
QUINTILIAN

Father Food Nature Poor Stranger Togetherness
We should not speak so that it is possible for the audience to understand us, but so that it is impossible for them to misunderstand us.
QUINTILIAN

Impossible Misunderstand Possible Talk Understand
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
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.
QUINTILIAN

Defeat Protection Wisdom

Lately we have had many losses.

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Lately we have had many losses.

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