QuoteProject
To swear, except when necessary, is becoming to an honorable man.
Quintilian
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Using vulgar language should be avoided unless absolutely necessary, as it diminishes one's honor.

Quintilian emphasizes the importance of maintaining one's dignity and honor through language. He suggests that swearing is a mark of lack of restraint and respectability, and should only be employed in extreme circumstances where it may be deemed necessary for emphasis or emotional expression.

Themes

SwearingHonorLanguageDignityRestraint

In practice

Example use cases

In a speech about maintaining decorum in public discourse.

More from Quintilian

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
As 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 toughness I was learning was not a martyred doggedness, a dumb heroism, but the art of accommodation. I thought: to be tough is to be fragile; to be tender is to be truly fierce.
Gretel EhrlichRead
There is no reason for believing that any sort of gods exist, and quite good reasons for believing that they do not exist and never have. It has all been a gigantic waste of time and a waste of life. It would be a joke of cosmic proportions if it weren't so tragic.
Richard DawkinsRead
Nor shall this peace sleep with her; but as when The bird of wonder dies, the maiden phoenix, Her ashes new-create another heir As great in admiration as herself.
William ShakespeareRead
I am not going to Heaven because I have preached to great crowds or read the Bible many times. I'm going to Heaven just like the thief on the cross who said in that last moment: 'Lord, remember me.'
Billy GrahamRead
When women understand that governments and religions are human inventions; that Bibles, prayer-books, catechisms, and encyclical letters are all emanations from the brains of man, they will no longer be oppressed by the injunctions that come to them with the divine authority of *Thus sayeth the Lord.*
Elizabeth Cady StantonRead
People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day.
Marianne WilliamsonRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.