A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
Quintilian

A laugh, if purchased at the expense of propriety, costs too much.
Quintilian

A liar should have a good memory.
Quintilian

As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.
Quintilian

Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.
Quintilian

Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.
Quintilian

Fear of the future is worse than one's present fortune.
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

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

Forbidden pleasures alone are loved immoderately; when lawful, they do not excite desire.
Quintilian


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

He who speaks evil only differs from his who does evil in that he lacks opportunity.
Quintilian

In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.
Quintilian

It is fitting that a liar should be a man of good memory.
Quintilian

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

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

It is worth while too to warn the teacher that undue severity in correcting faults is liable at times to discourage a boy's mind from effort.
Quintilian

It seldom happens that a premature shoot of genius ever arrives at maturity.
Quintilian

Men, even when alone, lighten their labors by song, however rude it may be.
Quintilian

Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.
Quintilian