Marcus Fabius Quintilianus

“We give to necessity the praise of virtue.”

“The perfection of art is to conceal art.”

“We should not write so that it is possible for the reader to understand, but so that it is impossible for him to not understand.”

“A liar must have a good memory.”

“It is the heart that makes a man eloquent.”

“Though ambition in itself is a vice, yet it is often the parent of virtues.”

“Conscience is a thousand witnesses.”

“The mind is exercised by study.”

“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.”

“Laughter is by no means a trivial matter.”

“Nothing is so difficult that it may not be overcome by diligence.”

“A mediocre intellect is hurtful to no one, but a perverse mind is a public evil.”

“To my mind, he has not lived in vain who has done something for the good of others.”

“The study of letters is a perpetual source of consolation.”

“Nature herself has decreed that the very beginnings of things are small.”

“Satire, as a kind of poetry in which human vices are reprehended, is entirely our own.”

“Let the boy win praise; let him be delighted with his success; let him be sometimes thwarted in his endeavors.”

“The frequent and careful reading of the best authors is a kind of literary diet.”