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Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.

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
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
Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.
QUINTILIAN

Gift Natural Rule Technical
Although virtue receives some of its excellencies from nature, yet it is perfected by education.
QUINTILIAN

Excellence Nature Perfection Virtue
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
We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.
QUINTILIAN

Form Mindset Reading Wide
Verse satire indeed is entirely our own.
QUINTILIAN

Ourselves Verse
The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression.
QUINTILIAN

Admission Creation Excellence Impression Pretend
In a crowd, on a journey, at a banquet even, a line of thought can itself provide its own seclusion.
QUINTILIAN

Crowd Journey Seclusion
Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.
QUINTILIAN

Ambition Parent Vice Virtue
Nothing can be pleasing which is not also becoming.
QUINTILIAN

Deep Please
Lately we have had many losses.
QUINTILIAN

Late Lose One Liner
In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
QUINTILIAN

Experience Value
It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
QUINTILIAN

Children Himself Imitation Nurse
For comic writers charge Socrates with making the worse appear the better reason.
QUINTILIAN

Appearance Better Comic Reason Worst Writing
A liar should have a good memory.
QUINTILIAN

Goodness Lying Memory

Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.

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Sayings designed to raise a laugh are generally untrue and never complimentary. Laughter is never far removed from derision.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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