Roger Ascham Quotes

Roger Ascham presents plain-spoken advice on learning, wit, and praise.

14 quotes

1. Aristotle him selfe sayeth, that medicines be no meate to lyue withall.

2. There is no such whetstone, to sharpen a good wit and encourage a will to learning, as is praise.

3. Twenty to one offend more in writing too much than too little.

4. To speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do is style.

5. He that will write well in any tongue, must follow this counsel of Aristotle, to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do: and so should every man understand him, and the judgment of wise men allow him.

6. A man, groundly learned already, may take much profit himself in using by epitome to draw other men’s works, for his own memory sake, into short room.

7. He that will write well in any tongue must follow this counsel of Aristotle: to speak as the common people do, to think as wise men do.

8. It is good manners, not rank, wealth, or beauty, that constitute the real lay.

9. A man reacheth not to excellence with one language.

10. Young children were sooner allured by love, than driven by beating, to attain good learning.

11. By experience we find out a short way by a long wandering.

12. To laugh, to lie, to flatter, to face: Four ways in court to win man's grace.

13. Learning teacheth more in one year than experience in twenty.

14. Italianate Englishmen are incarnate devils ... for they first lustfully condemn God, then scornfully mock his word, and also spitefully hate and hurt all the well wishers thereof… They count as fables the holy mysteries of religion.