Quintilian

It is feeling and force of imagination that makes us eloquent.

Marcus Fabius Quintilianus (c. 35 – c. 100), was a Roman rhetorician. His De Institutione Oratoria was widely referred to in medieval schools of rhetoric and in Renaissance writing.

Sourced

De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

• We give to necessity the praise of virtue.
  • Book I, 8, line 14; see also "To maken vertue of necessite", Geoffrey Chaucer, in Canterbury Tales, "The Knightes Tale", line 3044.

• It is much easier to try one's hand at many things than to concentrate one's powers on one thing.
  • Book I, 12, 7.

• Mendacem memorem esse oportet
  • A liar should have a good memory.
  • Book IV, 2, line 91. see also: "Liars ought to have good memories", Algernon Sidney, Discourses on Government, chapter ii, section xv.

• Vain hopes are often like the dreams of those who wake.
  • Book VI, 2, line 30. see also: "For hope is but the dream of those that wake", Matthew Prior, Solomon on the Vanity of the World, book iii, line 102.

• 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.
  • Book VIII, 2, 24.

• Historia et scribitur ad narrandum non ad probandum.
  • History is written for the purpose of narration and not in order to give proof.
  • Book X, 1, line 31.

• Nature herself has never attempted to effect great changes rapidly.
  • Book X, 3, 4.

• Pectus est enim, quod disertos facit.
  • For it is feeling and force of imagination that makes us eloquent.
  • Book X, 7, line 15.

• Those who wish to appear wise among fools, among the wise seem foolish.
  • Book X, 7, line 21; see also An X among Ys, a Y among Xs.

Unsourced

• Damnant quod non intellegunt.
  • They condemn what they do not understand.

• Or who do not fit words to things, but seek irrelevant things which their words may fit.
  • attributed by Montaigne