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Quintilian Quotes
b. 100
Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100), was a Roman rhetorician. His De Institutione Oratoria was widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing.
Also known as: Marcus Fabius Quintilian, Quintilian, Marcus Fabius
Random Quintilian quote
40 quotes
Satiety is a neighbor to continued pleasures.
We give to necessity the praise of 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.
Our minds are like our stomachs; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.
We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.
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.
History is written for the purpose of narration and not in order to give proof.
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
We should not write so that it is possible for [the reader] to understand us, but so that it is impossible for him to misunderstand us.
An unmeaning torrent of words.
So much easier is it to do many things than to do one thing for a long time continuously.
For it had been better for men to be born dumb and devoid of reason than to turn the gifts of providence to their mutual destruction.
Modesto tamen et circumspecto iudicio de tantis viris pronuntiandum est, ne, quod plerisque accidit, damnent quae non intellegunt.
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.
(Slaughter) means blood and iron.
Accordingly, the first essential is that those feelings should prevail with us that we wish to prevail with the judge, and that we should be moved ourselves before we attempt to move others.
For it is an ordinance of nature that nothing great can be achieved in a moment, and that all the fairest tasks are attended with difficulty, while on births as well she has imposed this law, that the larger the animal, the longer should be the period of gestation.
In either case the orator should bear clearly in mind throughout his whole speech what the fiction is to which he has committed himself, since we are apt to forget our falsehoods, and there is no doubt about the truth of the proverb that a liar should have a good memory.
Quamlibet multa egerimus, quodam tamen modo recentes sumus ad id quod incipimus. quis non obtundi potest, si per totum diem cuiuscunque artis unum magistrum ferat? mutatione recreabitur sicut in cibis, quorum diversitate reficitur stomachus et pluribus minore fastidio alitur.
Vain hopes are often like the dreams of those who wake.
Misattributed
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