Quintilian Quotes

We become just by the practice of just actions, self-controlled by exercising self-control, and courageous by performing acts of courage.

True education does not consist merely in the acquiring of a few facts of science, history, literature, or art, but in the development of character.

Virtue comes by nature, learning, and practice, and thanks to virtue, all of the aforesaid may deserve approval.

It is becoming clear that the old platitudes can no longer be maintained, and that if we wish to improve our morals we must first improve our knowledge.

Is not virtue a negation of becoming?

To many people virtue consists chiefly in repenting faults, not in avoiding them.

The greatest work in all the world is the building of men and women of character. Without character there is not much that is worthwhile.

Nature does not bestow virtue; to be good is an art.

Is virtue a thing remote? I wish to be virtuous, and lo! Virtue is at hand.

As to virtue . . . it is an act of the will, a habit which increases the quantity, intensity and quality of life. It builds up, strengthens and vivifies personality.

Virtue is indeed its own reward.

A good man will certainly also possess courage; but a brave man is not necessarily good.

If one is not virtuous he becomes vicious.

People are either good or they're not. Religion doesn't make anybody good, I don't think.

Higher education is not necessarily a guarantee of higher virtue.

If you do not know the laws of right conduct, you cannot form your character.

The only word for goodness is goodness, and it is not enough.

Virtue depends partly upon training and partly upon practice; you must learn first, and then strengthen your learning by actions.

True knowledge gives a moral standing and moral strength.

What is the real relation between happiness and goodness? It is only within a few generations that men have found courage to say that there is none.

We know that the exercise of virtue should be its own reward, and it seems to follow that the enduring of it on the part of the patient should be its own punishment.

The only reward of virtue is virtue.

I give priority to up-bringing over education because the ultimate goal of up-bringing is morals, and we have a more urgent need for morals than for knowledge.

Vices and virtues are of a strange nature, for the more we have, the fewer we think we have.

There is nothing so noble and so right as to play our human life well and fitly, nor anything so difficult to learn as how to livethis life well and according to Nature.