Sallust Quotes - Page 3

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

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

In my opinion it is less shameful for a king to be overcome by force of arms than by bribery.

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

Greedy for the property of others, extravagant with his own

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Of the bodies in the cosmos, some imitate mind and move in orbits; some imitate soul and move in a straight line, fire and air upward, earth and water downward.

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

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

The Romans assisted their allies and friends, and acquired friendships by giving rather than receiving kindness. [Lat., Sociis atque amicis auxilia portabant Romani, magisque dandis quam accipiundis beneficiis amicitias parabant.]

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

To like and dislike the same things that is indeed true friendship.

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.

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