Sallust Quotes

Prosperity tries the souls even of the wise.

The fame which is based on wealth or beauty is a frail and fleeting thing; but virtue shines for ages with undiminished lustre.

But many mortals, devoted to their stomachs and to sleep, have passed through life untaught and uncouth, like foreign travelers; and of course, contrary to nature, their bodies were a source of pleasure to them, their minds a burden. In the case of such people, I asses their life and death alike, since silence surrounds each. -p4

All who consult on doubtful matters, should be void of hatred, friendship, anger, and pity.

The poorest of men are the most useful to those seeking power.

One can ever assume to be what he is not, and to conceal what he is.

A good man would prefer to be defeated than to defeat injustice by evil means.

The very life which we enjoy is short.
[Lat., Vita ipsa qua fruimur brevis est.]

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

The firmest friendship is based on an identity of likes and dislikes.

It is sweet to surve one country by deeds, and it is not absurd to surve her by words.

Frequent mobs, seditions, and at last civil wars, became common, while a few leading men on whom the masses were dependent, affected supreme power under the seemly pretence of seeking the good of senate and people; citizens were judged good or bad, without reference to their loyalty to the republic (for all were equally corrupt); but the wealthy and dangerously powerful were esteemed good citizens, because they maintained the existing state of things.

Those most moved to tears by every word of a preacher are generally weak and a rascal when the feelings evaporate.

To have the same desires and the same aversion is assuredly a firm bond of friendship.

He only seems to me to live, and to make proper use of life, who sets himself some serious work to do, and seeks the credit of a task well and skillfully performed.

It is a law of human nature that in victory even the coward may boast of his prowess, while defeat injures the reputation even of the brave.

The Gods being good and making all things, there is no positive evil, it only comes by absence of good; just as darkness itself does not exist, but only comes about by absence of light.

It is always easy enough to take up arms, but very difficult to lay them down; the commencement and the termination of war are notnecessarily in the same hands; even a coward may begin, but the end comes only when the victors are willing.

All those who offer an opinion on any doubtful point should first clear their minds of every sentiment of dislike, friendship, anger or pity.

To someone seeking power, the poorest man is the most useful.

Only a few prefer liberty- the majority seek nothing more than fair masters.

Each man the architect of his own fate.

The glory of wealth and of beauty is fleeting and frail; virtue is illustrious and everlasting.

Since we have received everything from the Gods, and it is right to pay the giver some tithe of his gifts, we pay such a tithe of possessions in votive offering, of bodies in gifts of (hair and) adornment, and of life in sacrifices.

The glory that goes with wealth is fleeting and fragile; virtue is a possession glorious and eternal.

Small endeavours obtain strength by unity of action: the most powerful are broken down by discord.

In my own case, who have spent my whole life in the practice of virtue, right conduct from habitual has become natural.

Before you act, consider; when you have considered, tis fully time to act.

No mortal man has ever served at the same time his passions and his best interests.

Get good counsel before you begin; and when you have decided, act promptly.

No one has become immortal by sloth; nor has any parent prayed that his children should live forever; but rather that they should lead an honorable and upright life.
[Lat., Ignavia nemo immortalis factus: neque quisquam parens liberis, uti aeterni forent, optavit; magis, uti boni honestique vitam exigerent.]

Sovereignty is easily preserved by the very arts by which it was originally created. When, however, energy has given place to indifference, and temperance and justice to passion and arrogance, then as the morals change so changes fortune.

Just to stir things up seemed a great reward in itself.

All men who would surpass the other animals should do their best not to pass through life silently like the beasts whom nature made prone, obedient to their bellies.

Poor Britons, there is some good in them after all - they produced an oyster.

No man underestimates the wrongs he suffers; many take them more seriously than is right.

The soul sins therefore because, while aiming at good, it makes mistakes about the good, because it is not primary essence. And we see many things done by the Gods to prevent it from making mistakes and to heal it when it has made them. Arts and sciences, curses and prayers, sacrifices and initiations, laws and constitutions, judgments and punishments, all came into existence for the sake of preventing souls from sinning; and when they are gone forth from the body, Gods and spirits of purification cleanse them of their sins.

Now the myths represent the Gods themselves and the goodness of the Gods subject always to the distinction of the speakable and the unspeakable, the revealed and the unrevealed, that which is clear and that which is hidden: since, just as the Gods have made the goods of sense common to all, but those of intellect only to the wise, so the myths state the existence of Gods to all, but who and what they are only to those who can understand.

If fortune makes a wicked man prosperous and a good man poor, there is no need to wonder. For the wicked regard wealth as everything, the good as nothing. And the good fortune of the bad cannot take away their badness, while virtue alone will be enough for the good.

He that will be angry for anything will be angry for nothing.

In my opinion, he only may be truly said to live and enjoy his being who is engaged in some laudable pursuit, and acquires a name by some illustrious action, or useful art.

Neither the army nor the treasury, but friends, are the true supports of the throne; for friends cannot be collected by force of arms, nor purchased with money; they are the offspring of kindness and sincerity.

The glory of ancestors sheds a light around posterity; it allows neither good nor bad qualities to remain in obscurity.
[Lat., Majorum gloria posteris lumen est, neque bona neque mala in occulto patitur.]

A small state increases by concord; the greatest falls gradually to ruin by dissension.

In battle it is the cowards who run the most risk; bravery is a rampart of defense.

But few prize honour more than money.

All persons who are enthusiastic that they should transcend the other animals ought to strive with the utmost effort not to pass through a life of silence, like cattle, which nature has fashioned to be prone and obedient to their stomachs.

The man who is roused neither by glory nor by danger it is in vain to exhort; terror closes the ears of the mind.
[Lat., Quem neque gloria neque pericula excitant, nequidquam hortere; timor animi auribus officit.]

Advise well before you begin, and when you have maturely considered, then act with promptitude.

While the body is young and fine, the soul blunders, but as the body grows old it attains its highest power. Again, every good soul uses mind; but no body can produce mind: for how should that which is without mind produce mind? Again, while the soul uses the body as an instrument, it is not in it; just as the engineer is not in his engines (although many engines move without being touched by any one).

It is not unlikely, too, that the rejection of God is a kind of punishment: we may well believe that those who knew the Gods and neglected them in one life may in another life be deprived of the knowledge of them altogether. Also those who have worshipped their own kings as gods have deserved as their punishment to lose all knowledge of God.

We employ the mind to rule, the body to serve.

The soul is the captain and ruler of the life of morals.

Most honorable are services rendered to the State; even if they do not go beyond words, they are not to be despised.

Now these things never happened, but always are.

Small communities grow great through harmony, great ones fall to pieces through discord.

If the transmigration of a soul takes place into a rational being, it simply becomes the soul of that body. But if the soul migrates into a brute beast, it follows the body outside, as a guardian spirit follows a man. For there could never be a rational soul in an irrational being.

But assuredly Fortune rules in all things; she raised to eminence or buries in oblivion everything from caprice rather than from well-regulated principle.
[Lat., Sed profecto Fortuna in omni re dominatur; ea res cunctas ex lubidine magis, quam ex vero, celebrat, obscuratque.]

Think like a man of action, and act like a man of thought.

They envy the distinction I have won; let them, therefore, envy my toils, my honesty, and the methods by which I gained it.

To hope for safety in flight, when you have turned away from the enemy the arms by which the body is defended, is indeed madness. In battle those who are most afraid are always in most danger; but courage is equivalent to rampart.

Everything that rises sets, and everything that grows, grows old.

It is not only spirits who punish the evil, the soul brings itself to judgment: and also it is not right for those who endure for ever to attain everything in a short time: and also, there is need of human virtue. If punishment followed instantly upon sin, men would act justly from fear and have no virtue.

It is better to use fair means and fail, than foul and conquer.

For harmony makes small states great, while discord undermines the mightiest empires.

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

Fortune rules in all things, and advances and depresses things more out of her own will than right and justice.

Do as much as possible, and talk of yourself as little as possible.

But the case has proved that to be true which Appius says in his songs, that each man is the maker of his own fate.

It is always easy to begin a war, but very difficult to stop one.

Everything destroyed is either resolved into the elements from which it came, or else vanishes into not-being. If things are resolved into the elements from which they came, then there will be others: else how did they come into being at all?

Neither soldiers nor money can defend a king but only friends won by good deeds, merit, and honesty.

Not by vows nor by womanish prayers is the help of the
gods obtained; success comes through vigilance, energy,
wise counsel.

The essences of the Gods never came into existence (for that which always is never comes into existence; and that exists for ever which possesses primary force and by nature suffers nothing): neither do they consist of bodies; for even in bodies the powers are incorporeal. Neither are they contained by space; for that is a property of bodies. Neither are they separate from the first cause nor from one another, just as thoughts are not separate from mind nor acts of knowledge from the soul.

Among intellectual pursuits, one of the most useful is the recording of past events.