WIST Quotations

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius -- De Institutione Oratoria

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

While we ponder when to begin it becomes too late.

Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius -- De Institutione Oratoria, Book 3, ch. 8

Dave — Sun, 01 Feb 2004 16:00:00 +0000

Study depends on the good will of the student, a quality that cannot be secured by compulsion.

[Studium discendi voluntate, quae cogi non potest, constat.]

Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria, Book 3, ch. 8

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius -- De Institutione Oratoria, Book 8, ch. 2, l. 24

Dave — Mon, 24 Aug 2015 14:17:44 +0000

Don’t write so you can be understood. Write so that you cannot be misunderstood.

Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria, Book 8, ch. 2, l. 24

Alt. trans.: "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."

Also attributed to Epictetus, Francis Bacon, Robert Louis Stevenson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and William Taft.

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius -- De Institutione Oratoria, Book X, ch. 7, l. 15

Dave — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 13:02:29 +0000

For it is feeling and force of imagination that makes us eloquent.

[Pectus est enim, quod disertos facit.]

Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratoria, Book X, ch. 7, l. 15

Quintilian, Marcus Fabius -- De Institutione Oratorio, Book 12, ch. 9, l. 9

Dave — Mon, 13 Jun 2016 14:47:03 +0000

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

[Maledicus a malefico non distat nisi occasione.]

Quintilian (39-90) Roman orator [Marcus Fabius Quintilianus]
De Institutione Oratorio, Book 12, ch. 9, l. 9