Top 70 Quintilian Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Everything that has a beginning comes to an end.”

— Quintilian

2. “A liar should have a good memory.”

— Quintilian

3. “We excuse our sloth under the pretext of difficulty.”

— Quintilian

4. “We must form our minds by reading deep rather than wide.”

— Quintilian

Featured in: Book Quotes, Reading Quotes

5. “A mediocre speech supported by all the power of delivery will be more impressive than the best speech unaccompanied by such power.”

— Quintilian

6. “Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.”

— Quintilian

7. “A liar must have a good memory. -Mendacem oportet esse memorem.”

— Quintilian

8. “Conscience is a thousand witnesses.”

— Quintilian

9. “Usage is the best language teacher.”

— Quintilian

10. “A great part of art consists in imitation. For the whole conduct of life is based on this: that what we admire in others we want to do ourselves.”

— Quintilian

11. “Study depends on the goodwill of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.”

— Quintilian

12. “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.”

— Quintilian

13. “The learned understand the reason of art; the unlearned feel the pleasure.”

— Quintilian

14. “When defeat is inevitable, it is wisest to yield.”

— Quintilian

15. “Ambition is a vice, but it may be the father of virtue.”

— Quintilian

16. “If you direct your whole thought to work itself, none of the things which invade eyes or ears will reach the mind.”

— Quintilian

17. “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

18. “A religion without mystics is a philosophy.”

— Quintilian

19. “Though ambition may be a fault in itself, it is often the mother of virtues.”

— Quintilian

20. “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

21. “It is the heart which inspires eloquence.”

— Quintilian

22. “Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.”

— Quintilian

23. “Fear of the future is worse than one’s present fortune.”

— Quintilian

24. “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.”

— Quintilian

25. “By writing quickly we are not brought to write well, but by writing well we are brought to write quickly.”

— Quintilian

26. “There is no one who would not rather appear to know than to be taught.”

— Quintilian

27. “Give bread to a stranger, in the name of the universal brotherhood which binds together all men under the common father of nature.”

— Quintilian

28. “Those who wish to appear learned to fools, appear as fools to the learned.”

— Quintilian

29. “The perfection of art is to conceal art.”

— Quintilian

30. “An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.”

— Quintilian

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

— Quintilian

32. “A Woman who is generous with her money is to be praised; not so, if she is generous with her person.”

— Quintilian

33. “It is much easier to try one’s hand at many things than to concentrate one’s powers on one thing.”

— Quintilian

34. “The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.”

— Quintilian

35. “Lately we have had many losses.”

— Quintilian

36. “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

37. “In almost everything, experience is more valuable than precept.”

— Quintilian

38. “Prune what is turgid, elevate what is commonplace, arrange what is disorderly, introduce rhythm where the language is harsh, modify where it is too absolute.”

— Quintilian

39. “While we are making up our minds as to when we shall begin. the opportunity is lost.”

— Quintilian

40. “For all the best teachers pride themselves on having a large number of pupils and think themselves worthy of a bigger audience.”

— Quintilian

41. “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

42. “Our minds are like our stomaches; they are whetted by the change of their food, and variety supplies both with fresh appetite.”

— Quintilian

43. “She abounds with lucious faults.”

— Quintilian

44. “Give me the boy who rouses when he is praised, who profits when he is encouraged and who cries when he is defeated. Such a boy will be fired by ambition; he will be stung by reproach, and animated by preference; never shall I apprehend any bad consequences from idleness in such a boy.”

— Quintilian

45. “To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.”

— Quintilian

46. “Where evil habits are once settled, they are more easily broken than mended.”

— Quintilian

47. “Nothing is more dangerous to men than a sudden change of fortune.”

— Quintilian

48. “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.”

— Quintilian

49. “Without natural gifts technical rules are useless.”

— Quintilian

50. “It is easier to do many things than to do one thing continuously for a long time.”

— Quintilian