Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.
QuintilianRead
The gifts of nature are infinite in their variety, and mind differs from mind almost as much as body from body.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Nature offers a limitless array of gifts, and each person's mind is as unique as their physical form.
Quintilian emphasizes the vast diversity of natural gifts and highlights the individual differences in human minds, suggesting that just as our bodies vary, so too do our thoughts, perspectives, and intellects. This quote invites reflection on the richness of both nature and human experience, encouraging appreciation for the unique contributions each person can make to the world.
Themes
NatureDiversityMindIndividualityGifts
In practice
Example use cases
To illustrate the beauty of individuality in a speech about personal development.
More from Quintilian
All quotes βAs regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.
QuintilianRead
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
QuintilianRead
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
QuintilianRead
An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
QuintilianRead
It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
QuintilianRead
Similar quotes
The bluebird carries the sky on his back.
Henry David ThoreauRead
Beauty is nature's brag, and must be shown in courts, at feasts, and high solemnities, where most may wonder at the workmanship.
John MiltonRead
We have become great because of the lavish use of our resources ... But the time has come to inquire seriously what will happen when our forests are gone, when the coal, the iron, the oil and the gas are exhausted.
Theodore RooseveltRead
In reality, climate change is actually the biggest thing that's going on every single day.
Bill MckibbenRead
There in the mist, enormous, majestic, silent and terrible, stood the Great Wall of China. Solitarily, with the indifference of nature herself, it crept up the mountain side and slipped down to the depth of the valley.
W. Somerset MaughamRead
From barren brown stems to glistening leaf-buds; from the leaf-buds to snowy virginity of bloomβ¦It was like a flute song forgotten in another existence and remembered again. What? How? Why? This singing she heard that had nothing to do with her ears. The rose of the world was breathing out smell. It followed her through all her waking moments and caressed her in her sleep.
Zora Neale HurstonRead