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
A laugh costs too much when bought at the expense of virtue.
Interpretation
Humor should not come at the cost of moral integrity.
This quote by Quintilian emphasizes the importance of virtue over the pursuit of laughter. It suggests that while humor is valuable, it should never be derived from actions that compromise one's integrity or moral values.
In practice
In a seminar on ethics, to illustrate the importance of maintaining virtue, this quote could be used.
Consequently the student who is devoid of talent will derive no more profit from this work than barren soil from a treatise on agriculture.
As regards parents, I should like to see them as highly educated as possible, and I do not restrict this remark to fathers alone.
Whilst we deliberate how to begin a thing, it grows too late to begin it.
An evil-speaker differs from an evil-doer only in the want of opportunity.
It is the nurse that the child first hears, and her words that he will first attempt to imitate.
To my mind the boy who gives least promise is one in whom the critical faculty develops in advance of the imagination.
By mastering both aspects of our being we remember not only how to think, but what to think. What I'm clear about now is that the mind is a tool, a mechanism, and the soul provides the fuel for that machine. The less fuel you use, the more inefficiently the engine will operate. On the other hand, if your soul fills your mind with spiritual energy, you will be Mind-Full - and the workings of this engine can produce miracles.
While you live, while it is in your power, be good.
The older I get, the less I obsess about material stuff. In fact, stuff has become the enemy. There always seems to be more of it than I have storage in my house!
Devote the mind to confusion and we know only too well, if weΒ΄re honest, that it will become a dark master of confusion, adept in its addictions, subtle and perversely supple in its slaveries. Devote it in meditation to the task of freeing itself from illusion, and we will find that, with time, patience, discipline, and the right training, our mind will begin to unknot itself and know its essential bliss and clarity.
Never argue with people who buy ink by the gallon.
The thought is a deed. Of all deeds she fertilizes the world most.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.