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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

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For It Would Have

Quintilian

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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.

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Nature Herself Has Never Attempted To Effect Great Changes Rapidly.

To My Mind The Boy Who Gives Least Promise Is One In Whom The Critical Faculty Develops In Advance Of The Imagination.

The Pretended Admission Of A Fault On Our Part Creates An Excellent Impression.

It Is Much Easier To Try One's Hand At Many Things Than To Concentrate One's Powers On One Thing.

There Is No One Who Would Not Rather Appear To Know Than To Be Taught.

Fear Of The Future Is Worse Than One's Present Fortune.

Fear Of The Future

A Liar Must Have A Good Memory. -mendacem Oportet Esse Memorem

The Learned Understand The Reason Of Art; The Unlearned Feel The Pleasure.

It Is The Nurse That The Child First Hears, And Her Words That He Will First Attempt To Imitate.

In A Crowd, On A Journey, At A Banquet Even, A Line Of Thought Can Itself Provide Its Own Seclusion.

Conscience Is A Thousand Witnesses.

Our Minds Are Like Our Stomaches; They Are Whetted By The Change Of Their Food, And Variety Supplies Both With Fresh Appetite.

For The Mind Is All The Easier To Teach Before It Is Set.

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.

From Writing Rapidly It Does Not Result That One Writes Well, But From Writing Well It Results That One Writes Rapidly.

While We Are Examining Into Everything We Sometimes Find Truth Where We Least Expected It.

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.

Nothing Can Be Pleasing Which Is Not Also Becoming.

The Obscurity Of A Writer Is Generally In Proportion To His Incapacity.

Forbidden Pleasures Alone Are Loved Immoderately; When Lawful, They Do Not Excite Desire.

Forbidden Fruit

Let Us Never Adopt The Maxim, Rather Lose Our Friend Than Our Jest.

Though Ambition In Itself Is A Vice, Yet It Is Often The Parent Of Virtues. [lat., Licet Ipsa Vitium Sit Ambitio, Frequenter Tamen Causa Virtutem Est.]

Minds That Are Stupid And Incapable Of Science Are In The Order Of Nature To Be Regarded As Monsters And Other Extraordinary Phenomena; Minds Of This Sort Are Rare. Hence I Conclude That There Are Great Resources To Be Found In Children, Which Are Suffered To Vanish With Their Years. It Is Evident, Therefore, That It Is Not Of Nature, But Of Our Own Negligence, We Ought To Complain.

Without Natural Gifts Technical Rules Are Useless.

The Perfection Of Art Is To Conceal Art.

Ambition Is A Vice, But It May Be The Father Of Virtue.

It Is Easier To Do Many Things Than To Do One Thing Continuously For A Long Time.

Sayings Designed To Raise A Laugh Are Generally Untrue And Never Complimentary. Laughter Is Never Far Removed From Derision.

Too Exact, And Studious Of Similitude Rather Than Of Beauty. [lat., Nimis In Veritate, Et Similitudinis Quam Pulchritudinis Amantior.]

Study Depends On The Goodwill Of The Student, A Quality That Cannot Be Secured By Compulsion.

Satiety Is A Neighbor To Continued Pleasures. [lat., Continuis Voluptatibus Vicina Satietas.]

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.

A Liar Should Have A Good Memory.

Consequently The Student Who Is Devoid Of Talent Will Derive No More Profit From This Work Than Barren Soil From A Treatise On Agriculture.

Though Ambition May Be A Fault In Itself, It Is Often The Mother Of Virtues.

An Evil-speaker Differs From An Evil-doer Only In The Want Of Opportunity.

(slaughter) Means Blood And Iron. [lat., Coedes Videtur Significare Sanguinem Et Ferrum.]

A Woman Who Is Generous With Her Money Is To Be Praised; Not So, If She Is Generous With Her Person

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.

The Soul Languishing In Obscurity Contracts A Kind Of Rust, Or Abandons Itself To The Chimera Of Presumption; For It Is Natural For It To Acquire Something, Even When Separated From Any One.

A Liar Ought To Have A Good Memory.

We Excuse Our Sloth Under The Pretext Of Difficulty.

For Comic Writers Charge Socrates With Making The Worse Appear The Better Reason.

One Thing, However, I Must Premise, That Without The Assistance Of Natural Capacity, Rules And Precepts Are Of No Efficacy.

He Who Speaks Evil Only Differs From His Who Does Evil In That He Lacks Opportunity.

When We Cannot Hope To Win, It Is An Advantage To Yield.

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.

As Regards Parents, I Should Like To See Them As Highly Educated As Possible, And I Do Not Restrict This Remark To Fathers Alone.

The Prosperous Can Not Easily Form A Right Idea Of Misery.

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.

For All The Best Teachers Pride Themselves On Having A Large Number Of Pupils And Think Themselves Worthy Of A Bigger Audience.

Those Who Wish To Appear Wise Among Fools, Among The Wise Seem Foolish.

Suffering Itself Does Less Afflict The Senses Than The Apprehension Of Suffering.

Although Virtue Receives Some Of Its Excellencies From Nature, Yet It Is Perfected By Education. [lat., Virtus, Etiamsi Quosdam Impetus A Natura Sumit, Tamen Perficienda Doctrina Est.]

When Defeat Is Inevitable, It Is Wisest To Yield.

Whilst We Deliberate How To Begin A Thing, It Grows Too Late To Begin It.

Procrastination

Give Bread To A Stranger, In The Name Of The Universal Brotherhood Which Binds Together All Men Under The Common Father Of Nature.

It Is Fitting That A Liar Should Be A Man Of Good Memory.

She Abounds With Lucious Faults.

Nothing Is More Dangerous To Men Than A Sudden Change Of Fortune.

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.

Vain Hopes Are Like Certain Dreams Of Those Who Wake.

Usage Is The Best Language Teacher.

Those Who Wish To Appear Learned To Fools, Appear As Fools To The Learned.

A Mediocre Speech Supported By All The Power Of Delivery Will Be More Impressive Than The Best Speech Unaccompanied By Such Power.

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.

Write Quickly And You Will Never Write Well; Write Well, And You Will Soon Write Quickly.

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.

Virtue, Though She Gets Her Beginning From Nature, Yet Receives Her Finishing Touches From Learning.

Finishing Touches

If You Direct Your Whole Thought To Work Itself, None Of The Things Which Invade Eyes Or Ears Will Reach The Mind.

One Should Aim Not At Being Possible To Understand, But At Being Impossible To Misunderstand.

In Almost Everything, Experience Is More Valuable Than Precept.

Verse Satire Indeed Is Entirely Our Own.

Men, Even When Alone, Lighten Their Labors By Song, However Rude It May Be.

Lately We Have Had Many Losses.

It Seldom Happens That A Premature Shoot Of Genius Ever Arrives At Maturity.

Where Evil Habits Are Once Settled, They Are More Easily Broken Than Mended.

Broken Promises

Medicine For The Dead Is Too Late

A Religion Without Mystics Is A Philosophy.

By Writing Quickly We Are Not Brought To Write Well, But By Writing Well We Are Brought To Write Quickly.

While We Ponder When To Begin, It Becomes Too Late To Do.

The Gifts Of Nature Are Infinite In Their Variety, And Mind Differs From Mind Almost As Much As Body From Body.

Everything That Has A Beginning Comes To An End.

While We Are Making Up Our Minds As To When We Shall Begin. The Opportunity Is Lost.

It Is The Heart Which Inspires Eloquence.

A Man Who Tries To Surpass Another May Perhaps Succeed In Equaling Inot Actually Surpassing Him, But One Who Merely Follows Can Never Quite Come Up With Him: A Follower, Necessarily, Is Always Behind.

That Which Offends The Ear Will Not Easily Gain Admission To The Mind.

We Must Form Our Minds By Reading Deep Rather Than Wide.

To Swear, Except When Necessary, Is Becoming To An Honorable Man. [lat., In Totum Jurare, Nisi Ubi Necesse Est, Gravi Viro Parum Convenit.]

That Which Prematurely Arrives At Perfection Soon Perishes.

A Laugh Costs Too Much When Bought At The Expense Of Virtue.

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