“For it is an ordinance of nature that nothing great can be achieved in a moment, and that all the fairest tasks are attended with difficulty, while on births as well she has imposed this law, that the larger the animal, the longer should be the period of gestation.”

—  Quintilian

Book X, Chapter III, 4; translation by H. E. Butler
Compare: Natura non facit saltus
De Institutione Oratoria (c. 95 AD)

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Quintilian18
ancient Roman rhetor 35–96

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