Top 117 Quotes & Sayings by Sallust

Explore popular quotes and sayings by a Roman historian Sallust.

Last updated on December 21, 2024.

Gaius Sallustius Crispus, usually anglicised as Sallust, was a Roman historian and politician from an Italian plebeian family. Sallust was born at Amiternum in the country of the Sabines and later a partisan of Julius Caesar. He is the earliest known Latin-language Roman historian with surviving works to his name, of which Conspiracy of Catiline, The Jugurthine War, and the Histories are still extant. Sallust was primarily influenced by the Greek historian Thucydides and amassed great wealth from his governorship of Africa.

Roman - Historian | 86 BC - 34 BC

Source: Wikipedia

Necessity makes even the timid brave.

Sallust

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

Sallust

The higher your station, the less your liberty.

Sallust

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

Sallust

Every man is the architect of his own fortune.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

Every bad precedent originated as a justifiable measure.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

To like and dislike the same things, this is what makes a solid friendship.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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

Sallust

There were few who preferred honor to money.

Sallust

One may call the world a myth , in which bodies and things are visible, but souls and minds hidden. Besides, to wish to teach the whole truth about the Gods to all produces contempt in the foolish, because they cannot understand, and lack of zeal in the good, whereas to conceal the truth by myths prevents the contempt of the foolish, and compels the good to practice philosophy.

Sallust

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

Sallust

Prosperity tries the souls even of the wise.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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.

Sallust

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.

Sallust

Each man the architect of his own fate.

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

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

Sallust

No grief reaches the dead.

Sallust