Sallust Quotes

In victory even the cowardly like to boast, while in adverse times even the brave are discredited.

No grief reaches the dead.

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

There were few who preferred honor to money.

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

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.

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

The fame that goes with wealth and beauty is fleeting and fragile; intellectual superiority is a possession glorious and eternal.

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

For men who had easily endured hardship, danger and difficult uncertainty, leisure and riches, though in some ways desirable, proved burdensome and a source of grief.

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.

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

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

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

A good man prefers to suffer rather than overcome injustice with evil.

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

It is the nature of ambition to make men liars and cheats, to hide the truth in their breasts, and show, like jugglers, another thing in their mouths, to cut all friendships and enmities to the measure of their own interest, and to make a good countenance without the help of good will.

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

Harmony makes small things grow; lack of it makes great things decay.

Ambition breaks the ties of blood, and forgets the obligations of gratitude.

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 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.

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

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.

By the wicked the good conduct of others is always dreaded.

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

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.

But at power or wealth, for the sake of which wars, and all kinds of strife, arise among mankind, we do not aim; we desire only our liberty, which no honorable man relinquishes but with his life.

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

Deliberate before you begin; but, having carefully done so, execute with vigour.

Each man the architect of his own fate.

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.

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.

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

As the blessings of health and fortune have a beginning, so they must also find an end. Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

But few prize honour more than money.

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

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.

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

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

Of the cosmic Gods some make the world be, others animate it, others harmonize it, consisting as it does of different elements; the fourth class keep it when harmonized.

To have the same likes and dislikes, therein consists the firmest bond of friendship.

The renown which riches or beauty confer is fleeting and frail mental excellence is a splendid and lasting possession.

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

Few men desire liberty; most men wish only for a just master.

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

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