Best 89 quotes of Sallust on MyQuotes

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

Again, if the world is destroyed, it must needs either be destroyed according to nature or against nature. Against nature is impossible, for that which is against nature is not stronger than nature. If according to nature, there must be another nature which changes the nature of the world: which does not appear.

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

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

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.

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.

All this care for the world, we must believe, is taken by the Gods without any act of will or labor. As bodies which possess some power produce their effects by merely existing: e.g. the sun gives light and heat by merely existing; so, and far more so, the providence of the Gods acts without effort to itself and for the good of the objects of its forethought. This solves the problems of the Epicureans , who argue that what is divine neither has trouble itself nor gives trouble to others.

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

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

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

Ambition drove many men to become false; to have one thought locked in the breast, another ready on the tongue.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

By union the smallest states thrive. By discord the greatest are destroyed.

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

Distinguished ancestors shed a powerful light on their descendants, and forbid the concealment either of their merits or of their demerits.

Each man the architect of his own fate.

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

Everything rises but to fall, and increases but to decay.

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

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

Greedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

It is impossible that there should be so much providence in the last details, and none in the first principles. Then the arts of prophecy and of healing, which are part of the cosmos, come of the good providence of the Gods.

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 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.

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

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.

Kings are more prone to mistrust the good than the bad; and they are always afraid of the virtues of others.

Necessity makes even the timid brave.

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

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.

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.]

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

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.