"While we deliberate about beginning it is all ready too
late to begin."
"That laughter costs too much, which is purchased by the
sacrifice of decency."
"The mind is exercised by the variety and multiplicity
of the subject matter, while the character is moulded by the contemplation
of virtue and vice."
"Though ambition itself be a vice, yet it is often times
the cause of virtues."
"To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in
whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination."
"Verse satire indeed is entirely our own."
"When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield."
"When we cannot hope to win, it is an advantage to yield."
"Without natural gifts technical rules are useless."
"As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly
educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone."
"Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will
derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on
agriculture."
"For the mind is all the easier to teach before it is
set."
"It is much easier to try one's hand at many things than
to concentrate one's powers on one thing."
"It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words
that he will first attempt to imitate."
"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."
"Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly."
Written by Quintilian
