Quintilian quotes

Quintilian was a Roman rhetorician and educator, renowned for his influential work on rhetoric, Institutio Oratoria. His teachings emphasized the importance of moral character in effective oratory. He greatly influenced educational theory and the study of rhetoric in Western tradition. Here are 68 of his quotes:

The perfection of art is to conceal art. (Quintilian)
A liar ought to have a good memory. View quote
Quintilian
It is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time. View quote
Quintilian
Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish. View quote
Quintilian
Vain hopes are like certain dreams of those who wake. View quote
Quintilian
Conscience is a thousand witnesses. View quote
Quintilian
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it. View quote
Quintilian
Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite. View quote
Quintilian
The pretended admission of a fault on our part creates an excellent impression. View quote
Quintilian
When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield. View quote
Quintilian
Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues. (Quintilian)
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. View quote
Quintilian
Everything that has a beginning comes to an end. View quote
Quintilian
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue. View quote
Quintilian
While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. the opportunity is lost. View quote
Quintilian
It is much easier to try one's hand at many things than to concentrate one's powers on one thing. View quote
Quintilian
Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly. View quote
Quintilian
When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield. View quote
Quintilian
We give to necessity the praise of virtue. View quote
Quintilian
It is a complaint without foundation that "to very few people is granted the faculty of comprehending what is imparted to them, and that most, through dullness of understanding, lose their labor and their time." On the contrary, you will find the greater number of men both ready in conceiving and quick in learning, since such quickness is natural to man. As birds are born to fly, horses to run, and wild beasts to show fierceness, so to us peculiarly belong activity and sagacity of understanding. View quote
Quintilian
Let the orator whom I propose to form, then, be such a one as is characterized by the definition of Marcus Cato, a good man skilled in speaking. But the requisite which Cato has placed first in this definition-that an orator should be a good man-is naturally of more estimation and importance than the other. (Quintilian)
I do not merely assert that the ideal orator should be a good man, but I affirm that no man can be an orator unless he is a good man. For it is impossible to regard those men as gifted with intelligence who on being offered the choice between the two paths of virtue and of vice choose the latter, nor can we allow them prudence, when by the unforeseen issue of their own actions they render themselves liable not merely to the heaviest penalties of the laws, but to the inevitable torment of an evil conscience. View quote
Quintilian
Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune. View quote
Quintilian
It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory. View quote
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. View quote
Quintilian