[2]
We must
[p. 93]
therefore write as much as possible and with the
utmost care. For as deep ploughing makes the soil
more fertile for the production and support of crops,
so, if we improve our minds by something more than
mere superficial study, we shall produce a richer
growth of knowledge and shall retain it with greater
accuracy. For without the consciousness of such
preliminary study our powers of speaking extempore
will give us nothing but an empty flow of words,
springing from the lips and not from the brain.
Quintilian. With An English Translation. Harold Edgeworth Butler. Cambridge. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Press; London, William Heinemann, Ltd. 1922.
The Annenberg CPB/Project provided support for entering this text.
This work is licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License.
An XML version of this text is available for download, with the additional restriction that you offer Perseus any modifications you make. Perseus provides credit for all accepted changes, storing new additions in a versioning system.